MOST I LEARN FROM MY STUDENTS

Babylonian Talmud Ta’anit: Much I learn from my teachers; more from my colleagues; but most from my students.

Entering a Florence Melton Adult Mini-School classroom on a bright snowy day in Chicago, I hear the hum and chatter of eager students greeting each other and catching up on the events of the week. As they brush off the snow, pour themselves a cup of coffee, and take their accustomed seats around the table, they never fail to warm my heart. There are young mothers who request to keep their cell phones on just in case they are needed back home, and recent empty nesters who fondly call themselves “the post carpool generation,” and senior citizens who forget their infirmities while they study.

I never take for granted the wonderful diversity of students before me, all of them sharing a love for Jewish text and a sense of wonder at the way it touches their lives. They represent all ages; they come from all parts of the world; they are at different stages of their Jewish journey.

I am in awe of the representation of life before me, and I am challenged to teach in a way that will meet their unique needs. From them, I have learned that there are common experiences and desires on which I can build and that many of these are a result of living in North America in the 21st century. Judaism is a choice for them—even those coming from a traditional background. How do I help them make informed choices? How do I present Judaism in the best possible light-- including its encouragement of doubt, debate and disagreement?

I am challenged, and yet I have the utmost confidence that I am only a transmitter of an irresistible truth that makes our brief time in this world more meaningful, more worth living. It is a truth that transcends time and space and extends our existence beyond what we know. This also I have learned from my students.

WHY HANUKKAH? AND HOW!

While speaking to a group of community leaders, I used a metaphor I had relied on in several other occasions. I talked about a sacred task that Jews perform daily. Each person provides a link between the past and the future in our chain of tradition. I used the word “shalshelet,” which means “chain” and described the chain extending back to Sinai.

This obviously troubled one young woman, who said, “I am the first person in my family in this chain. I converted to Judaism. I am just a charm on the bracelet.”

What followed was an intense discussion about all of us standing at Sinai, about the privileges and pleasures of Jewish life and our responsibility for the next generation regardless of when we became part of the chain. One of the other participants said, “I just decided to do something about being Jewish. My parents in the Soviet Union didn’t teach me anything."

I learned a lesson from this experience. We are living in a time when many non-Orthodox Jews are “Jews by choice--” deciding for themselves what kind of Jews they want to be and how to connect with the Jewish community. Once making that choice, they link themselves with all that has happened to Jews living before them, with what is happening to Jews today, and with all that will happen in the future.

Each of us inherits the richness of the experiences and learning of past generations in our own way. Some have precious family memories on which to build, some acquire the memories of am Yisrael, the people of Israel, through learning, some begin by experiencing Judaism through art, music or Birthright Israel. And all of us who identify as Jews will, at some moment in our adult journey, be in a position to pass Judaism on to others--children, students, friends, colleagues.

This past Shabbat my rabbi delivered a beautiful sermon on why we light Hanukkah candles. After talking about the historical victory of the Maccabees and the Talmudic version of celebrating the rededication of the Temple and the miracle of the oil that lasted eight days, he spoke of the joy and responsibility of taking our memories--what we learned from our parents and grandparents and passing them on to the next generation. He quoted Deuteronomy 32,7: “Remember the days of old, Consider the years of ages past; Ask your father, he will inform you, Your elders, they will tell you.”

And I said a quiet prayer-—that when elders and fathers, do not tell us these things, those who choose to live as Jews, to claim the riches of past generations, have the determination, the support, and the resources to do so. That, in turn, will strengthen the next generation.

MASTERING THE ART OF MIDRASH: INQUIRING

Midrash unstructured is a difficult. In truth, the group was losing heart a little and so was I. We had lost the deeply inspiring moments that just seemed to rise up out of the Torah text. We would focus on a word, think about where else it appeared, try to interpret what the character might be doing or even the HOBBH (have you ever tried to type “Holy One Blessed be He over and over again? I should add that I never copy pages from a book when I teach. I always type or cut and paste selections so I can compose the class a bit musically.) ‘S motivations and voila, we would find inspiration to carry us through the week.

I had to admit to myself that I did not like the reflective practice that I saw in the mirror and needed to make a change pronto. Not sure how I landed on this but probably has something to do with my deeply felt belief that my students (all of them, everywhere) are sacred texts and that we would get to the written text if we started with them once again. This is a bit of a polarity with my desire to let the classical text itself be more of a presence, but I had to try this.

The following week was Chaye Sarah, my Bat Mitzvah parsha. I began class with a simple question: what is the value of a life? This drew some silence and then some beautiful responses. A lie is valued by what you accomplish, not what you earn, by the family you create, how you reach out to others. They led right to Rashi: Why does this pasuk repeat the word shanah over and over again? To indicate that Sarah’s life is sequenced “each is interpreted individually…and all were equal in goodness.” Each person was able to describe the sequences of their lives: when they lived in their parents, homes, marriage, before and after children, before and after the loss of parents. There was something in the moment that I can only call a merging of these women’s’ stories and Sarah’s story, a jumping into the looking glass of the Biblical narrative.

From there we could go on to the Midrashim through the prism of the question. What else does this parsha have to say about the value of life? The analysis of the Midrashim was focused and the learning rich.

So now, each week, I have to inquire of the text and find the profound questions to frame our study, there is always more than one. Sometimes I consult with Aviva and the Sfat Emet; sometimes the question comes from inside me. Then I can cut, paste, hone, shape and craft the lesson. And is that not what Midrash is in essence supposed to be?

MASTERING THE ART OF MIDRASH:LES POISSONS ET MOI

It took about ten minutes into the first piska in Bereshit Rabbah for the class to figure out that they were in a new country. Where was Job and what did he have to do with Bereshit?

“Welcome to the world of Midrash” was their answer. "Midrash assumes that the entire Tanach is a seamless text, where one text is always speaking to another. The art of Midrash and enjoyment of it as a style of literature is flying out to the place where the author begins and slowly closing in on a line from your original text. How you get there--the textual and aesthetic moves--makes an interpretation into an art form. “

J wanted to know if Midrash is commentary. “Yes and no” seemed appropriate. Sometimes a comment is just an explanation and sometimes it is midrashic. Midrash wants to move you, make a point and lift you up. Midrash can get very emotional which I think is why so many people think of it as a polemic against other competing religions. More on this to come, I am sure.

“Boy we sure are going to learn a lot about other books in the Bible!” someone said. At the very least we are going to spend a lot of time flipping pages around.

Then I had a funny inspiration. Some time ago I had a student who always found the place in Psalms or the Prophets in a split second. Her secret weapon? Tabs for each book of the Bible which she had picked up in a Christian book store.

I decided my students deserved a present, since they had given me a beautiful wall hanging for my Sukkah. Surfing around on internet, I googled Bible tabs. Who knew there were so many choices? Gold foil, pink, lavendar, with fish and without. I ordered a set for everyone. Now I am getting daily emails from Christian Book Source. Kind of interesting to compare their offerings ( no pun—okay yes pun-- intended!).

It was a little shocking to see the tiny crosses under-hatching each tab. They did not appear on the enlarged image. So my students have homework: 1) throw out the tabs they do not need 2)attach the tabs they do need 3) notice the difference in the order of the books 4) take a pen to the crosses. Can’t have my students walking about town with fishy looking Bibles. But they were all so tickled and happy!

FINDING ANSWERS VS ASKING QUESTIONS

L is enrolled in the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School--finally carving out time in a schedule crowded with work, marriage, creating a home and raising children. She, like many others, wants to find answers to the Jewish questions she has asked all of her adult life. Today we were reading and discussing texts related to the rarely discussed subject of sin. We studied texts from Genesis and some of the commentators who wrote about the good and evil inclination within all of us.
“So why,” L. asked after reading about Adam and Eve eating of the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, “didn’t God put the tree somewhere out on the edge of the garden? Why did it have to be right in the center, and why was the snake placed there to tempt Eve?”

Several students shared their answers to her questions—each one finding an explanation that was rational and perhaps comforting -- but not completely satisfying. Certainly, none of the responses satisfied L. Frustrated, she said, “All of these answers can’t be right. Adam and Eve were not just set up for failure. We also should not be expected to fail, to be satisfied to go on without answers.”

Jewish teachers have a complicated responsibility. We have two tasks that could appear to contradict each other. On one hand, we are responsible for teaching a body of knowledge that has been passed down to us through the centuries—our texts and its commentaries, practices, beliefs, and ethical behavior. Our students expect to learn these from us. On the other hand, we are responsible for engaging learners in analysis and questioning. We want them to wrestle with possible answers and equip them to make choices among possible Jewish options. When Jewish learners study Bible commentaries, Talmudic sources and contemporary texts, they are aware of differences of opinion on many important issues. But they want answers.

The class ended with L. shaking her head in frustration. I understood her dissatisfaction. If it is comforting, I told her, this is what happens when you delve into the tough questions in Judaism. Perfect answers are elusive. The process of seeking answers is what learning is about. Perhaps, there may never be an answer that is completely satisfying, but we discover some remarkable things along the way.

Mastering the Art of Midrash 4: Asking an Expert

Okay so I don’t like to drop names too much but this week I feel compelled. If you could name 3 people in the world who—if they came to your house—would give you palpitations of the heart, who would it be? Most people find it hard to answer this question, but for me it is easy: Paul McCartney, Yo-Yo Ma (have you ever seen him play the Bach Cello Suites?) and Aviva Zornberg.

Well, this week I got one of my three wishes. Aviva Zornberg was speaking at Beth Hillel in Wilmette and I invited her to dinner. I obsessed for a week about the menu and we had a fine time, talking about families, music, traveling for work, etc. I have met her before and she is gracious and lovely.

In the car on the way to the lecture, I decided to ask her a pedagogical question. “Aviva, I have to ask you something. This year I am teaching a Midrash class and I am struggling to find a pedagogy that works. How did you come to develop your style of teaching?” She looked at me a bit puzzled (“Why is this woman bothering me when I want to prepare my head for the lecture" was what she must have been thinking. But I had just fed her this amazing soup (this IS a cooking blog) with roasted apples and butternut squash, dried cranberries and almonds, so she had to respond.) And said: “I am really not sure. No one has ever asked me that before.”

“I am finding it a challenge,” I confessed. “ It seems to midrash that Midrash is the type of text that has to maintain its presence and its voice all the time, in the way that Gadamer or Elie Holzer might say. You can’t just read a bit of it, and let a class jump off into finding some sort of personal meaning in the text. This causes a tension for moderns, who love to be at the center all the time. Midrash is forcing my class to hold back, they have to learn to stay with the circular moves and jumps in the Tanach to get to a point that might seem pointless to them. They are frustrated. What do you think I should do?”

Now she was thoughtful. I know that thinking about teaching is right up there for me as it is not for everyone, but she was interested now. “Well, I suppose I would say that I let the Midrash have its voice to tell me more truth about the Torah.”

That was it. But it gave me a lot to think about since that time. Next blog I will report on how I incorporated what she said into the next lesson, and how it made a huge difference.

What a gift that there are such teachers in the world as Aviva Zornberg.

Now what would I ask Yo-Yo Ma? Never mind, what would I cook for him? At least McCartney eats veggie.

JANE SHAPIRO MASTERING THE ART OF MIDRASH 3

I was very honest with the class during the first session about how little I really know about Midrash. Long ago I read a book by Stephen Brookfield called Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. One of the most vivid chapters is about Brookfield’s experience taking a swimming class as an adult. One person dived into the lane next to him and starting doing some complicated stroke, making it look easy. Brookfield was frightened and intimidated until another student in the next lane leaned over and said: when I was learning how to do this, not too long ago, I found it helpful to put my arms, so and kick my arms so. Brookfield learned the stroke.

This is what I said to the class: “Folks, I am no expert in Midrash. I am friendly with experts in Midrash ( Dr. Marc Hirshman of Jerusalem), I have taken classes in Midrash and even used Midrash in my own teaching but I AM NOT AN EXPERT. On the other hand, this is a huge advantage for you because I am just beyond a beginner and remember all the steps that I needed to begin to learn Midrash. So, I can be a good help to you.

The room got quiet and I was not sure what would happen. And then L (the class decided that I could use their first initials but should respect them not wanting to be cult heroines on the internet.) broke the silence with: “Jane, we loved you before and now you are being so totally honest I have even more respect.” Then we got to work.

What did this mean and what does this mean for teachers of adults? We need to be truthful with ourselves about what we know or don’t know. Faking and posturing is not the best strategy. You can tell when you are “winging it”; trying to create an answer out of bits and pieces which you hope you are selling with an authoritative voice. And you know from students’ faces that they are trying to look like you said something comprehensible, but for the life of them they have no idea what it is. Credibility comes from being authentic and honest. Tell them what you know, but when you don’t, tell them that you can find out. Being an advanced beginner is an asset not an embarrassment.
No posturing allowed if you want to help folks find their truth.

CONTINUITY TO RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT

Those of us connected to national organizations have lived through the last three decades with the rallying cries of Continuity and then Renaissance and Renewal ringing in our ears. I have come to the conclusion that we now are living in a new age, the age of Enlightenment.

In the 18th century the Enlightenment was the revolution of the individual. Institutions of Europe lowered their focus from aristocracy and clergy to a new group emerging from the darkness. These people began to articulate clearly and confidently what they wanted. In response, society directed resources and energy to meet their needs.This emerging class had the means to take care of their basic needs. What they wanted was power—to be in control of their lives. First and foremost, they wanted to be educated. During the Enlightenment, the concept of universal education arose. It meant self-determination; it meant revolutions and the end of the old model of hereditary rule. It ended dependency on the church and the monarchy.

Our Jewish community is entering its own age of Enlightenment. Knowledge of Judaism is no longer the property of the elite, the rabbis and scholars. Jewish adults are asking for the opportunity to shape their lives, to equip themselves to make decisions about a meaning-filled life and spiritual well-being. Learning today, as in the 18th century, is self-empowerment. The treasures of Judaism are there to be known by everyone. The community has the responsibility to listen, to respond and to provide ways to access these riches of our heritage. Perhaps the time has arrived for universal adult Jewish education, a 21st century Jewish Enlightenment.

FROM JANE SHAPIRO - MASTERING THE ART OF MIDRASH: BATTERIE DE CUISINE

My first class teaching parsha with Midrash. How do we cut into the topic?

I cleaned out my pantry of books (aka my library which has absolutely no room for any more books while still welcoming the purchases which arrive daily from Amazon) and looked around. Hayyim Nachman Bialik’s Sefer Aggadah,seems like a place to start. His Hebrew is so beautiful--reminds me of Helen Davidson, my favorite Jewish teacher of all time. And yet at this juncture, the selections are too short, all too punchliney. They read like sermons, I suppose.

Louis Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews, multi-volume--well--voluminous, and with references from everywhere, Going down the path of comparative folklore and mythology and classical texts and Christian interpretations is just too much. My students want to know what Midrash is and how it adds to the meaning of the Torah, plain and simple. This would become a scholarly disquisition (what a good word!) on critical reading and the history of textual traditions. Go read Thomas Mann’s Joseph if you want to enjoy this approach.

My buddy Michael Balinsky, who is likely to appear again in this blog, put me onto the Torah Temimah many years ago. I love these volumes because they follow the Torah with every place in the Talmud that a Midrash appears. Rashi is there as well, and the notes are clear and helpful. Does Temimah refer to Tam, pure, or simple? Either way, this book is for a dvar Torah, not this class. It would mean jumping into Talmud and Midrash simultaneously. Cutting and pasting snippets out of context is too jumpy for a first go around.

Aviva Zornberg on the parsha? Possibly, but you also have to embrace psycho-analysis and western literature to follow her midrashic path. Reading her is more a personal religious endeavor for me. More on this at some point.

What about Rashi at least? I read through his comments for the week and included a few in the first set of texts. More to report on how that worked out.

I finally settled on selections from Bereshit Rabbah . The Soncino translation is clumsy and too much to read each week, so I am back to a modified version--selecting individual midrashim while trying to convey some of what I call the concerns of the text.

How this turned into the first lesson and how the students shaped what follows next.

**** COMMENT FROM BETSY Would this description of the varieties of midrash not make a lesson in itself? Do students share a definition of “midrash?” Do they realize that even with a narrowed perception of midrash, in contrast to other Torah commentaries, there is a broad spectrum of midrashic literature. And what about women’s midrash that is getting so much attention today?

CREATION OF THE WORLD...AND MORE

“Why didn’t an all-powerful G-d create the world all at once? Why did God go to so much trouble when a snap of the fingers could have brought the world into existence?” That was the question asked by a student in my Florence Melton Adult Mini-School class recently. One student suggested that it teaches us to make an effort to work systematically to better our world. Another said that the created world is a complex place, and we should appreciate all its dimensions.

As the lesson proceeded, we saw the repeated formula for God’s creation of the world--commanding a part of creation into existence, separating elements out of the chaos, naming what was created, and evaluating it. The text describes an intentional, systematic process—and it was good. It contrasts with other existing creation stories--like the Babylonian epic that portray the beginning of the world from spoils of a battle between a female dragon and Marduk, the strongest of the gods. In battle, Marduk uses the four winds to blow Tiamat apart, half of her creating the sky, the other half-- the earth.

What I have thought about since the class, however, has led me to something I will ask my students to respond to when we meet this week. More than the material world is created by God in the first chapter of Genesis. God also creates time, seven “days.” The first day’s light--whose source is something other than the sun-- not only enables us to perceive creation but also allows us to mark the passage of time from one day to the next—light to darkness to light again. As a creation of God, time--like the created world--is ours to master and tend.

The material world and time become inseparable. As modern cosmologists have proven, each requires the other to exist. Later, God will bless the seventh day accentuating its holiness, and later still, we are able to continue creation by living moments of holiness in time.

In The Sabbath: It’s Meaning for Modern Man,Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote: “Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time, to be attached to sacred events, to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year. “

MASTERING THE ART OF MIDRASH: FIRST RECIPE FROM JANE SHAPIRO

When Betsy first invited me to write on her blog, it was a wonderful reminder of our years together at the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School. We liked to call ourselves “identical friends”, finishing sentences for each other, looking at situations with similar sensibilities, always challenging each other to more creativity, more precision, more insight. How wonderful to collaborate once again.

But, how to find a voice, an angle into blog-writing? I was not quite sure. I have a friend in Evanston who is in the blogworld every day. He can tell you what is going on deep in the Hasidic world, who is taking a stance on what, who is attacking whom. He eats it up. He has also been telling me that I have something to say about Jewish life and should get my ideas out there. Flattered, but unsure I took a look at some of his favorites. People can be brutal once you put your thoughts not “on the line” but online. No way could I keep that up regularly.

But is there a topic that I do care about so passionately that I would be prepared to write about it for people I do not know? I should have anticipated where I would find inspiration. A Talmudic but—forgive me—trite line that says “ more have I learned from my students” that for years graced tee shirts, tote bags and all sorts of Jewish educator regalia turned out to be right on target. My amazing Friday morning students showed me the way.

Last year this group studied parshat hashavua, the weekly Torah reading, from beginning to end. At the beginning (!) of the cycle, I asked them what they wanted to look for in their reading, what questions they wanted to explore in the text. They had three answers: how the Torah informs tefilah, prayer; how important ideas and values were presented that they could teach to their children and how to understand God better. Theologians and ethicists. The year was rich in insight, powerful and challenging. It fulfilled a teaching dream of mine, and I learned a lot about the Torah.

So onto this year. We had debates on what to do next. The final consensus was: “Parsha with Midrash.”

Yikes! This was new stuff for me, the teacher. I have studied midrash a bit on my own with a Shabbat chevruta, study partner, read a few books about it, used it in Melton teaching, but this was a whole new thing. There is no book with the parsha and juicy midrashim in the margins. How would I sort and select from the thousands of texts for each line? What would be representative of the genre? Did that even matter? What would give insight into the parsha so we were also reviewing? Did the midrashim touch on some of the deep ideas and questions we developed last year, but in a new way? How could I fit into an hour and fifteen minutes a review of the parsha? How much “stuff” would I need to prepare, and how many hours would it take, with teaching, the Mitzvah Initiative project, and now my own school work for the Jewish Theological Seminary?

The first week I prepared and prepared, cut and pasted and fretted. And in class, my students were attentive and helpful. We found--not a pathway to study midrash--but at least the trailhead. I’m not sure if I can use their names, but one student emailed me after class with wonderful suggestions on how to frame and move forward: brilliant! I am on a journey to explore a new style of teaching.

So, in the spirit of Julie and Julia, I have found a topic for this blog: a weekly record of my teaching year. I hope it provides some insight or new ideas for other adult Jewish educators, helps them take some risks in their teaching, try something new, think about teaching from other angles. Based on what I have seen, if this blog is working, I will get some critique as well. But I guess that is what good colleagues do.

SOUNDS OF A NEW YEAR

We begin again. Last Shabbat, we opened the Torah scroll revealing its first columns and—with more emotion than when I hear the shofar, more sentiment than when we read the first verses of Genesis amidst the hubbub of Simhat Torah--I am aware of beginning a new year. It is a moment of renewal, the beginning of a new cycle of Jewish life.

“When God began to create heaven and earth—the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water--”


I am bound to this ancient, wise document. I never tire of its words, phrases, and sentences, and I never fail to uncover something new that has been hidden. This past Shabbat my husband Michael read Torah at North Suburban Synagogue Beth El. He learned to read Torah from his father, Alexander, who learned from his father, Zundel, who learned from his father, Avraham David, each one pronouncing letters in the scroll as vigilantly as the scribe who had first written them, each one adding meaning to the text and our lives through words he chanted.

Perhaps Michael’s careful attention to every letter and trope drew me to the sounds of the Hebrew words that have captured our attention and told the story for thousands of years. I heard the sounds of creation: the shhhhhhhh of wind flowing over water, bereshit…shamyim, the hollow emptiness preceding creation, ohhh...ooo of pre-existence, tohu v’vohu… t’hom. These sounds blend with the cantillation and continue the infinite pulsing of Torah.


The power of Torah goes beyond the intellectual. Its reading by generations of Jews is as eternal as the revolving earth, the ebb and flow of tides, the beating of our hearts.

Claiming the Gift of Learning

I was given a gift at birth, an inheritance that became mine by listening to stories when I was a child, by talking with friends when I was a teen, by learning and teaching as an adult. It was the same gift given to people smarter, more wealthy, more religious, more ambitious than I. It was the same gift given to presidents, soldiers, shopkeepers, business owners and farmers.

Actually, according to one of the stories my father told me, I was given this gift before I was born. Sometime, somewhere before I began, angels taught me all there was to know. Just before I was born one of them tapped me on my upper lip. I looked in a mirror, and I could see the angel's fingerprint right under my nose.
Because of that, my Jewish learning has been a matter of remembering what I already had known, reclaiming facts, insights and wisdom that were already mine. Every time I learn something new from Torah, Tanach, Talmud, or their commentaries, I feel more complete.