Mechon Hadar Guest

Rabbi Ethan Tucker

On a chilly weekend in Seattle, you expect to see a lot of people huddled under fleeces and coats as they move about their business, ducking into coffee shops for some warmth.  You might not expect to see 200 people packing a room to learn Torah, huddled over Jewish sources and arguing over their meaning and relevance for their lives.

Yet that was the scene two weeks ago at Mechon Hadar's inaugural Yeshiva Experience program at Congregation Beth Shalom in Seattle.  (Read about it in the press here.)  For 48 hours, members of this mid-sized congregation gathered for a very different sort of scholar-in-residence weekend.  Rabbi Ethan Tucker and Sara Labaton, two members of the Yeshivat Hadar faculty, staffed a weekend of learning that actively engaged more than 250 people. Registration for the Friday night dinner had to be closed at 200 and 72 people signed up to commit for the entire weekend of study. After services on Shabbat morning, organizers removed all the chairs from the sanctuary.  They replaced them with tables, transforming the space into a true Beit Midrash.  On Sunday morning, 150 learners of all ages--ranging from the Hebrew school students to the elders of the congregation--were loudly engaged in the cacophonous energy of havruta learning, with some tussling over the meaning of the Korah story and others exploring texts on keeping kosher in a non-kosher world.  The sight was truly remarkable.

The community is leveraging the power of the weekend to create an ongoing learning program.  The Seattle Beit Midrash, launched this past week, will meet biweekly, offering congregants the chance to learn Talmud in the original in a guided learning environment.  You can see more about this new program here.  The Rabbi and many congregants have already described the transformative effect of the immersion learning experience community.

There is a deep thirst for learning.  Thousands of years ago, the prophet Amos said, "The day will come, says God, when I will send a famine to the land and people will be hungry, but not for bread, thirsty, not for water, but to hear the words of God."  We live in that time.  Some have mistakenly interpreted lagging rates of affiliation and indicators of intensive assimilation as suggestive of a lack of interest in Judaism. In fact, when Jewish content is presented at a high level, with high quality, in a way that invites participants into the conversation and urges them to take ownership of Jewish discourse, the enthusiasm and interest is often unbridled. One of the most striking things about this yeshiva weekend in Seattle was that it was neither the preserve of beginners alone nor of more seasoned learners. Jews from a wide range of backgrounds were able to come together and unite in a common conversation, engaging with sources that have animated our people for millennia.

Don't dumb it down. All sources during the weekend were provided in English translation but also in the original. Moreover, no source was not studied because it was deemed "too hard." The job of excellent teachers is to convey the meaning in any Jewish source of the translated applicability to the learner's spiritual and intellectual life. The members of Congregation Beth Shalom, like all other American Jews, are bright, inquisitive, intelligent people who are not only capable but desirous of a deep engagement with profound material. We do the Torah and those studying it a disservice whenever we aim for anything less than the highest level of intellectual engagement.  ThosYeshiva Experiencee without any formal Jewish education were studying the words of the Talmud, the Tosafot, ibn Janah, Ramban, the Terumat Hadeshen and R. Ovadiah Yosef.  At Mechon Hadar, we believe these sources contain important truths and wisdom that are continually relevant; those who learn with us deserve nothing less than to feel the full power of these texts by engaging with them directly.

Minyanim and established synagogues can collaborate to raise the quality and intensity of Jewish life. One of the most remarkable things about this weekend is the way in which the energy of Yeshivat Hadar---which flows from the founding of Kehilat Hadar and other minyanim founded in its wake--formed a powerful synergy with the reservoirs of commitment found in a local synagogue like Congregation Beth Shalom in Seattle. This program is a model not only for how the yeshiva's learning can have a broad impact beyond its walls, but also for the ways in which the energy of independent minyanim can serve as a powerful force for energizing a local community.  When the conversation about collaboration is substantive and goal-oriented, avoiding red-herring issues such as affiliation and membership, great things are possible.

This weekend left many deeply inspired. Inspired by the power of Torah to continually shape and influence us.  Inspired by the abiding yearning for meaning among Jews of all ages, who are open to turning to their tradition for guidance on the most important matters affecting their lives. Inspired by local leadership such as Rabbi Jill Borodin of Congregation Beth Shalom, who invested hours of thought and planning as well as unflagging enthusiasm into a program that she knew had the potential to transform her synagogue into a place of learning, not just for 48 hours, but well into the future. And inspired by the work we are doing at Mechon Hadar, which, if we do it right, can truly remake the way the Jewish community approaches Jewish learning.  This pilot program is just the beginning.  We look forward to bringing this program to local communities around the country.