There are nearly 100 students for the first summer session here at the Conservative Yeshiva. It is an incredibly diverse population. As Yeshiva Director Rabbi Daniel Goldfarb put it, “The students range in age from less than 20 all the way to more than some of the higher numbers.” There are students from all over the world, including a large contingent of students from England, and a woman from Oslo who is studying to become the first non-Orthodox rabbi in Norway. There are Jewish community leaders and educators (both lay-leaders and professionals), Hillel professionals, men and women about to enter rabbinical school, college students spending a summer in Israel and people there simply to study Jewish texts and halacha (law) in Jerusalem.
Every morning begins with either Talmud study or ulpan. I chose to take ulpan, which is intensive Hebrew study. The Yeshiva’s uplan classes meet three and a half hours a day, Sunday through Thursday. Before leaving for the summer, all of the ulpan students took a placement exam. I placed into the fourth level. In our class of 12, I am in the bottom quarter. However, I think I would rather be the lowest in a higher class and struggle and work harder and push myself to learn more, than to be the highest in the lower class and not be able to learn as much over the time I am here. It is a full immersion class, and although I am not able to follow every single spoken word, I am able to understand and participate fully in all of our conversations and activities. So far I am slowly improving and becoming more comfortable speaking Hebrew each day.
My next class is “The Torah: Written and Oral, Human and Divine” with Dr. Shaiya Rothberg. This class explores what we mean by “Torah” by examining classic Jewish sources from rabbis, philosophers and Kabbalists. For the first two sessions we have been focusing on Maimonides (a Jewish philosopher during the Middle Ages in Spain, considered to be one of the greatest Torah scholars of all time) and next we will be moving on to the Zohar (the classic text on Jewish mysticism, or “Kabbalah” written around the same time, possibly as a response to Maimonides’ teaching). During today’s class (our second meeting), Dr. Rothberg remarked how he probably should have indicated that this was an advanced course. No kidding. This is some heavy stuff. But it is fun and it is completely different from what I have studied before.
Next I have “Engaging with Israel” facilitated by Sally Klein-Katz. This class attempts to define “Israel” and identify the challenge of Israel in the Diaspora, and how to create an engagement with Israel as a meaningful part of congregational life. This class is thus far the most personal. One of my goals of this trip was to help define for myself my own thoughts and relationship with Israel, but in many ways this may end up being the most difficult class during my time here.
I am also taking a class on Tefillah with Rabbi Daniel Goldfarb. He we are taking an in depth look at our prayer service and its history, examining each of the sections of the service and its prayers, and how they got there. No small task in just three weeks. Twice a week I am also going on walking tours of Jerusalem. These tours will take of through various neighborhoods or to look at different historical synagogues throughout Jerusalem.
Lastly during the first session I will be participating Thursdays in Gimilut Hesed, group volunteer projects in Jerusalem. This session I will be helping out at a community garden. This is especially great for me since I am not able to help out at all during the busiest season at the Beth Israel Garden back home. Throughout the summer there are also additional one meeting classes that take place such as looking at parashat ha’shavu'a (the weekly Torah portion), or doing a text study over lunch.
That’s all for now. Since tonight’s entry didn’t have any pictures, tomorrow will be exclusively pictures!
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