The first two days of school

Xander does not like daycare. He refuses to take a bottle or eat in a high chair. Thankfully the daycare is right on campus, so I can go visit and nurse him every few hours. That seems to help the separation anxiety overall. But it's also hard to hear him cry every time I leave. Not to mention constantly switching between Mommy and student mode.

But to share something about being in student mode... my Talmud professor is amazing. Do you remember in the first Harry Potter, when Professor Snape gave an opening speech which had all the students mesmerized? That's what this first class was like.

He started off by stating that a person who studies one page of Talmud every day takes seven years to finish. It's a seven-year reading cycle. We have 13 weeks in our semester. The course will be "a hard slog" as he put it, with arduous translations and lots of reading. Then he told us why.

"In two and a half years," he said, "you will be ordained from this institution and you will go out into the field. You will be teaching adult education classes. And you will be teaching professional teachers and educators. Many of them will be better teachers than you are. You will be sitting in board meetings with professional administrators and business people. They will know more about board work than you do, and they will be better at it. You will be doing chaplaincy work in hospitals with professional doctors, nurses, and therapists. Many of them will be better than you at it. You will be doing interfaith work with priests, ministers, and imams, many of whom can quote the Hebrew Bible verse for verse. They will know it better than you do.

What do you bring to the table? What makes you a rabbi? Your knowledge of rabbinic literature. Judaism is a not a Biblical religion. Doing Kiddush on Friday nights is not in the Bible. Ketubot are not in the Bible. Saying the Amidah at services every morning is not in the Bible. They are all from the Talmud. Judaism, even Reform Judaism, is a rabbinic religion, either following or reacting to the Talmud.

Being a rabbi is very often performative. You lead services from the bima. You can say the words, you can sing the songs, you know how to conduct a life cycle event. I invite you to think of this as the tip of the iceberg of Judaism. This class will help you to see the glacier underneath the water. If you do not know why you do the performative acts, you are no better than a lay leader. And we have plenty of those. You are here to be a rabbi.

You might ask me, why do we have to break our teeth on the Aramaic and the rabbinic Hebrew? The Talmud is translated into English. The Mishnah is translated into English. And I will tell you, that is correct. However, the [huge number] of medieval commentaries are not. The [huge number] of responsa are not. You must be able to access them, and you cannot do that without knowledge of language. You will not be able to read the Talmud fluently when you leave this classroom. But we will have cracked the door open so that you can begin to decipher the array of literature that distinguishes Judaism from other religions."

After going over the syllabus, he closed by saying, "I do not set anyone up to fail. Your failure as a student is my failure as a teacher. We will get through this together. And hopefully, you will see this class an opportunity through which to open other doors of Judaic knowledge."

I have to tell you, I've been dreading taking this course since the day I applied to rabbinical school, but now I'm really excited about it!



P.S. Sheryl, I know my links in this post suck - they're Wikipedia or chabad.org - but I'm pressed for time and they give a decent overview!