So many of us feel a lack of resources for serious Jewish learning in our lives. Maybe there are no formal adult Jewish education institutions nearby. Maybe our local congregations are, on the whole, less knowledgeable than we are. Maybe we’ve got a basic Jewish educational background, but for whatever reason, we have gaps in our knowledge that we want to fill without going back to the aleph-bet.
At the same time, we know the aleph-bet, when many others don’t. One of us may not know how to lay tefillin, but may know how to tie tzitzits. Maybe this person knows how to read Torah but not Haftarah, while that person knows how to read Haftarah but not Torah. Opportunities for learning are missed every day because we don’t know how to ask each other.
So I want to pose the question to everyone who feels a need: What do you want to learn? What do you want to teach?
December 22nd, 2006 at 3:16 pm
I want to learn the practice of Conservative Judaism. I want to fully learn Kashrut laws and exactly what I can/can not do on Sabbaths and holidays. I want to learn to read Torah and I want to learn the proper melodies to the prayers. I also, desperately, want to learn to lay tefillin.
As to what I can teach. I have a pretty broad understanding of the history of Jews in medieval and renaissance Europe. If you want to know about laws regarding Jews in Europe from 1100 to 1600, there’s a good chance I know about it or at least know where to look. I also can teach an understanding of the broad evolution of Jewish thought in the Ghettos (note: there is no practical use for this). Basically, I have an academic knowledge of Jews in Europe, but not a spiritual understanding of the Religion. I am happy to contribute the one and gain the other.
December 22nd, 2006 at 3:54 pm
I would like to learn:
-How to read Hebrew faster and more fluently
-How to understand basic biblical Hebrew
-How to speak basic conversational Yiddish
-How to make my kitchen fully kosher and how to navigate living as kosher
-When and how to do the daily prayers. I.E. What prayers to say, and how, and at what time of day.
-Torah trop, which I learned in the most basic way for my Bat Mitzvah but don’t remember any of
-How to keep shabbos and ways that Conservative people choose to keep shabbos in a modern world
-More about why the Torah and Shabbat services are structured how they are
-How to know how to chant the prayers that people mutter to themselves in shul. No one’s really singing but yet they all seem to be whispering some kind of tune which I never learned.
I could teach:
-About Kosher cooking. Though my kitchen isn’t entirely kosher yet, I eat kosher food only and I know enough about kashrut to cook entirely kosher food - And I am a skilled cook (see my blog).
-Very basic, elementary Hebrew reading
-I know a lot of songs and prayers, with various Conservative and Renewal tunes.
Not a whole lot, really! I have more to learn than to teach.