Hebrew College Blog

Melila Hellner-Eshed is coming to Hebrew College this Monday, October 19. Don't miss her--this is a rare opportunity.

Melila is simply the best Zohar teacher in the world. She has spent thirty years in a profound love affair with this great literary work of the 13th century, the primary text of the Jewish mystical tradition. As a "secular" Israeli deeply involved in her own spiritual search, she has learned to mine the Zohar in a unique and highly personal way, while still being recognized as a major Hebrew University scholar. Even if the Zohar and Kabbalah do not interest you, come see and hear her. You will never encounter a better example of devoted and open-hearted teaching.

I especially look forward to the opportunity for public dialogue with her. Come join us!

--Art Green

Dr. Arthur Green is Rector of the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College and Irving Brudnick Professor of Philosophy and Religion.

Yet, here I sit only two years later, 1 month into rabbinical school, and 110 percent committed to this path. So what happened, you ask? Plain and simple: A friend told me about the 2007 Ta Sh'ma prospective students' weekend at Hebrew College, and so I went.

Let me paint a picture for you of what a Ta Sh'ma community looks like: 50 students, 18 prospective students (I was one of those), ten faculty, five custodians, four administrators, two babies, one Dean and one Rector--all smiling at me--from the first day of the Ta Sh'ma retreat on Thursday to the last day on Sunday. The proof was in the pudding. From the moment when I first walked through its doors, I was witness to a diverse, authentic and caring community, one in which each member supports, and in turn, is supported by each other member. Here was a community that lived its values so well, its walls reverberated happiness.

One day later, my wife arrived in Boston to join in the Ta Sh'ma community Shabbat experience. A mere 24 hours into Ta Sh'ma, I welcomed her with the question: How do you feel about moving to Boston?

A mathematical problem: Would I be at rabbinical school now had I not come to the Ta Sh'ma? Statistically speaking: I would probably be sitting somewhere, wondering why I was only 20 percent committed to this path.

Ta Sh'ma. Come, Learn!

--David Fainsilber

David Fainsilber is a first year student in the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College.

Please join our students and faculty for Ta Sh'ma 2009, Thursday, October 22-Sunday, October 25. You'll study, pray, celebrate and experience the vibrant community of our pluralistic Rabbinical School, under the leadership of Dr. Arthur Green and Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld.

Monday, October 5, 2009
7:30-9:00 p.m.
Berenson Hall
Myths, Illusions, and Peace
Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East
David Makovsky in conversation with David Starr

Middle East expert David Makovsky, co-author of Myths, Illusions, and Peace, challenges some of the basic beliefs that have guided Washington's Middle East strategy, in a public conversation with Dr. David Starr, Vice President for Community Education.
Co-sponsored by Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston.

Sunday, November 1, 2009
7:30-9:00 p.m.
Berenson Hall
Slumbering Prophets and the Escape from Self: How the Book of Jonah Mines and Undermines the Story of Noah
Judy Klitsner in conversation with Daniel Lehmann

Two prophets, Noah and Jonah, seek to escape their responsibilities to help rescue humanity. As a result, both run the risk of losing themselves, one in alcoholic oblivion, the other by falling into a coma-like slumber. In a public conversation with Rabbi Daniel Lehman, Hebrew College President, master Bible teacher Judy Klitsner, author of Subversive Sequels in the Bible, will address the question of humanity's potential for genuine and enduring self-transformation.

Sunday, December 13
7:30-9:00 p.m.
Berenson Hall
Jacob's Cane: A Jewish Family's Journey from the Four Lands of Lithuania to the Ports of London and Baltimore; A Memoir in Five Generations
Elisa New in Conversation with David Starr

Drawn to an image of her great-grandfather's ornately carved cane, scholar Elisa New embarked on a journey to discover the origins of her precious family heirloom. Treading back across the paths of her ancestors, she traveled from Baltimore to the Baltic to London in order to find and understand an immigrant world profoundly affected by modern German culture, from the Enlightenment through the Holocaust. Explore the art of the memoir and one woman's journey to discover her family's roots in this public conversation between Elisa New and David Starr.

Tickets
Advanced registration: $10 for one lecture; $18 for two; $25 for three
At the door: $15 general admission; $12 seniors and students

For more information, contact Renee Tepper, 617-559-8622; rtepper@hebrewcollege.edu.

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Commercially available kosher chickens were forced to endure confining living conditions. Even chickens sold under a popular kosher organic label, though technically free-range, were rarely allowed to venture beyond their coops. And truck delivery of those chickens across hundreds of miles exacted a substantial carbon footprint.

The Margalits wanted to eat local, organic, grass-fed, free-range chickens that were also kosher, but no provider could satisfy all those criteria. So they took matters into their own hands—literally.

That spring Ilana learned of a farmer willing to produce such chickens in Barre, Mass., a small town on the outskirts of Worcester. With three other couples, the Margalits ordered 100 chickens from the farmer. The following July, when the chickens had matured, Margalit helped to prepare the chickens for consumption.

Holding the chickens while the shochet slaughtered them in accordance with the laws of kashrut, he thanked each one silently as it met its fate. Then came the arduous task of plucking.

"Typically, you put the recently slaughtered chicken into a device that resembles an open washing machine, and hot water loosens the skin and feathers," he explains. "But kashrut prohibits the use of hot water because it effectively cooks the blood into the chicken. With cold water, however, the automatic plucker is not very effective.

"So the farmer, extended family and neighbors helped me to pluck each chicken by hand. It took all day; I had to leave before they finished."

Soon after, as Ilana and Natan prepared to eat one of the carefully prepared chickens, he wondered how he would feel, having just seen the birds alive. "I found that being closer to the process only made the experience of eating richer and more real," he says. "I felt I was eating responsibly."

That experience marked the first harvest of a growing cooperative to bring "eco-kosher" chicken to households in Greater Boston. With dozens of members signed on this year, Margalit aims to order 300 more chickens from the same farmer. "This time we'll make sure we'll have a lot of volunteers to pluck," he says.

The cooperative is just the latest of Margalit's efforts to fuse Jewish and environmental ethics. Since the early 1990s, he has written and taught widely on the subject and participated in an interfaith program that incorporates ecological responsibility into traditional dietary practices. Today he serves as faculty advisor for a student environmental committee that seeks to incorporate green practices at Hebrew College.

"My approach to Judaism comes back to a sense of aliveness; it's about constantly striving for integration between physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual worlds," says Margalit, who spent 12 years doing just that as an oleh in Israel. "Today I want kashrut to be not just about fulfilling technical religious requirements, but also a way of raising consciousness about the entire journey of the food from the farm to my plate."

—Mark Dwortzan

Mark Dwortzan is a freelance writer living in Newton, Mass. 

The director of this scene is Jennifer Truboff MJEd'07, a student in Hebrew College's Jewish Special Education (SpEd) certificate program and graduate of the Hebrew College/ Pardes Educator's program—and a pioneering Jewish educator who is applying computer technology to teach Jewish content and Hebrew language in the special needs classroom.

Credit for special effects goes to SMART Technologies, makers of the SMART Board. Essentially an interactive, touch-sensitive whiteboard, the SMART Board enables students to access Web resources; view or manipulate images and animations of numbers, letters and words; play educational video games; and listen to audio recordings.

"We have auditory, visual and kinesthetic learners, and the SMART Board's multimedia format is a powerful way to enhance their understanding," says Truboff. "Being able to move letters and words or watch animations builds English and Hebrew language acquisition and reading fluency."

For instance, to teach her students about prepositions, Truboff writes "I walked to the store" in English on the SMART Board, and positions the corresponding Hebrew words for "I," "walked," and "store" nearby. When the kids drag and drop the Hebrew words onto their English counterparts and find that "to" and "the" remain uncovered, Truboff calls their attention to the missing lamed.

The technology also motivates students to develop their Hebrew and English handwriting skills, notes Sarah Shay-Davidson, another SpEd student who teaches Hebrew to kids with special needs at the South Area Solomon Schechter Day School in Norwood, Mass. "Only one thing can touch the board at a time or it goes off-kilter," she says. "This forces kids who have a hard time writing to hold the pen properly and write correctly."

Shay-Davidson recently asked her students to build simple sentences, such as "This is a red apple," out of Hebrew word-images color-coded according to gender. One week later, most demonstrated complete retention of the lesson. She credits the multi-sensory SMART Board for helping to hold her students' attention and accelerate their ability to recognize and combine Hebrew words and letters.

"As a kid I did everything I could to get out of Hebrew classes," recalls Shay-Davidson, who has ADD and dyslexia. "I truly believe every kid-with or without special needs-can learn Hebrew if it's presented in a way that addresses their learning style."
______________________________________________________________________________
Truboff and Shay-Davidson were co-presenters at the April 26-27, 2009 GISHA (Good Ideas Supporting Hebrew Access) Conference: Teaching Hebrew Reading to Students with Special Needs at Hebrew College.

—Mark Dwortzan

Mark Dwortzan is a freelance writer living in Newton, Mass.

Across the tables in the Bet Midrash and up the hill at Andover Newton Theological School (ANTS), seminarians are joining with Hebrew College rabbinical students to explore texts, values and beliefs rooted in both Jewish and Christian traditions.

In the recent ANTS/HC course "Moses and Jesus: Models of Religious Leadership," Greg Mobley, ANTS Professor of Hebrew Bible, and Rabbi Or Rose, Associate Dean of the Rabbinical School, required students to discuss assigned texts in hevruta sessions before each class. Rabbi Van Lanckton Rabb'09, who converted to Judaism in 1967, found the experience rich with insights that bridge religious traditions

"My partners from ANTS recently discussed with me a passage from the Gospel of Luke stating that Jesus' parents brought him as an infant into the Jerusalem temple to ‘present him to the Lord,'" he recalls. "I pointed out that the temple in Jerusalem was the site where animals were slaughtered as sacrificial offerings. It then dawned on us that this passage could be viewed as presaging the crucifixion."

Leslie Becknell Marx, a 2009 graduate of ANTS and Unitarian Universalist who has long participated in interfaith services and dialogue circles, views such exchanges as powerful learning opportunities.

"When you enter into this conversation, your default position is often a shallow understanding of the other's tradition," Marx observes. "The practice of hevruta forces you to deepen your understanding of the other's tradition and your ability to explain your own."

With that goal in mind, ANTS and HC students have placed hevruta-style text study and conversation at the core of joint initiatives over the past five years. Supported by generous grants from the Righteous Persons and Luce Foundations, these include semester-length courses (taught jointly by HC and ANTS faculty), interfaith student leader fellowships, peer study groups, and informal learning and ritual observance opportunities. Participants engage in deep conversations about their religious journeys and other topics of common interest.

These programs have created a safe space for hevruta partners of different faiths not only to find common ground, but also to express skepticism about controversial issues, such as the historical veracity of the parting of the Red Sea or the divinity of Jesus. "Hevruta is not just about discussing texts, but about building trust across religious divides," says Marx.

Lanckton agrees. "There's a passage in Exodus in which God tells Moses to place on the cover of the Ark of the Covenant inside the Tabernacle the likenesses of two cherubim—two human-faced angels—facing each other across the tablets bearing the Ten Commandments," he says.

"God tells Moses, ‘There I will meet with you.' I believe that is a place where God is manifest, where two humans face each other and engage in deep and honest communication. That's hevruta."

—Mark Dwortzan

Mark Dwortzan is a freelance writer living in Newton, Mass.

The year was 1937, five years after "Bei Mir Bistu Sheyn" ("To Me You Are Beautiful"), from the Yiddish operetta I Would if I Could, made a hit with Jewish audiences in America. Composer Sholom Secunda was certain the song had crossover potential and was trying to convince Hollywood producers it could be a popular hit.

But Hollywood wasn't buying; the song was too Jewish. So Secunda decided to sell publication rights to J. & J. Kammen Music Company for the grand sum of $30—and split the proceeds with his lyricist, Jacob Jacobs.

As things turned out, Secunda's instincts were correct, but he settled too soon. A couple of years before he sold the copyright, two other Jewish musicians, Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin, were in the audience at Harlem's Apollo Theater one night when Johnny & George, a pair of African American performers, brought down the house singing "Bei Mir"—in Yiddish.

Realizing the song had huge market potential, Cahn bought the sheet busic and tried to interest Tommy Dorsey in performing it for a mainstream audience, to no avail. But in 1937, just months after Secunda sold his rights to the music, Cahn acquired them and created a swing version with English lyrics for a fledgling trio who were trying to break into show business—the Andrews Sisters. Their Decca recording of "Bei Mir Bist Du Schön (Means That You're Grand)" raced to the top of the charts. Shortly after its release in December 1937, it became the best-selling record of all time.

"The story of 'Bei Mir' provides us with a window into the process of Jewish American acculturation," says Joshua Jacobson, Acting Dean of the School of Jewish Music. "It first appears as an artifact meaningful only to the ‘insider' population for whom it was created. Then it completely sheds its Jewish identity—the Yiddish lyrics, the scales of synagogue music—in order to be accepted by the American public at large."

Jewish musicians would come to dominate the new field of popular music. From "King of Swing" Benny Goodman, whose interracial big band and collaboration with black arranger Fletcher Henderson made jazz history, to George and Ira Gershwin and their classic jazz opera, Porgy and Bess, Jewish composers, lyricists, performers and publishers could be found on every page of the Hit Parade.

And that was only the beginning. For nearly a century, Jews have continued to create new and exciting forms of popular music, here in the U.S. and around the world. Jacobson, who is also founding director of the Zamir Chorale of Boston, Hebrew College artists-in-residence, is in the midst of developing a Jewish jazz concert, JaZZamir, for next spring that will run the gamut from "Bei Mir" to exciting contemporary choral arrangements by the Israeli jazz choir Coral.

"The interplay between Jewish and African American musicians was a crucial part of the mix in early jazz," says Jacobson. "And that continues today. You can hear the new mix in the performances of The Hip Hop Hoodios, Matisyahu, Paul Shapiro, Greg Wall and others. But now these Jewish artists are using the post-modern mix as a means of expressing new forms of Jewish identity. They have transformed their parents' assimilation into their own dissimilation."

—Evelyn Herwitz

Evelyn Herwitz is Director of Marketing and Communications at Hebrew College.

A breast cancer survivor, Sohn was tapped to sing the national anthem in response to a request from the Massachusetts chapter of the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which partners with Major League Baseball every Mother's Day to show their support for Going To Bat Against Breast Cancer.

Seeking a survivor with an excellent voice, local chapter Executive Director Ronni Cohen-Boyar turned to Hebrew College. She well-knows the College's Jewish music resources—her late husband, Rick Boyar, was studying to become a cantor and received post humus ordination as an honorary member of the first graduating class in 2007.

"Ronni called me that Monday, which meant I had one week to prepare," says Sohn. "I told her I'm not a performer. I'm an educator. I look at the national anthem as the prayer ritual people do before they begin the game. Ronni said, ‘Then we're on the same page.'"

Thrilled to be asked, Sohn turned to her cantorial voice coach, Cantor Charles Osborne, and performance coach Lynn Torgove for help. A challenging piece to perform, The Star Spangled Banner ranges over an octave-and-a-half. Sohn explains that the starting note is critical, as are phrasing and pronunciation. She also needed advice about performing the piece in open air, which absorbs sound. To practice, Sohn sang to her horses as she did barn work on her Holliston farm.

The Friday before the big game, Sohn took the option of pre-recording the anthem at Fenway, to ensure that her performance would be solid. "I did it in one take!" she says. So when she stepped out on the field on Sunday, she wasn't nervous.

Instead, singing along with her recording into a muted mike, Sohn was exhilarated. "When I got to the land of the free, everyone began singing along. It's a wall of sound coming back at you. Being part of that experience was just fabulous."

So fabulous that Sohn repeated the experience on June 18 in Pawtucket, R.I., for the Pawtucket Red Sox minor league team, which partners with the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Resource Foundation to raise breast cancer awareness.

"God gave me the gift of a voice," she says. "Using this gift to help in the fight against breast cancer is a great honor."

—Evelyn Herwitz

Evelyn Herwitz is Director of Marketing and Communications at Hebrew College.

Congratulations! Your success at this great institution is something in which you should take great pride. As rabbis, you are now in a unique position to share the wisdom of our rich tradition. My challenge to you, as you embark on your path of rabbinic leadership, is to never stop striving to make Judaism a force for joy and learning.

Judaism is primarily a religion of joy. All of our holidays, with the possible exception of Tisha b'Av, are joyous. Yet, in my experience, it is all too often that synagogue services are less than inspiring. Rabbis must lead by example. As you guide your congregations in prayer, focus on making your services spiritually uplifting and intellectually engaging. Encourage your community to explore their religious practice and spiritual lives, without telling them what they must believe. We must be confident that our tradition is compelling enough to attract people to seriously engage with it, and then give them opportunities to do so. People should attend services because they want to, not because they think it is something they should do.

One thing which distinguishes Judaism from other religions is the value it places on learning and asking questions. Most often we see this at Pesach, when the youngest at the table recites the Four Questions, to demonstrate that while a slave cannot question his master, a free man can ask questions and should. Being Jewish in today's free society allows us, even commands us, to doubt. As rabbis, you should teach the texts and traditions of our heritage in ways that inspire all, including the skeptic, the doubter and the nonbeliever, to build an identity that is profoundly, proudly and authentically Jewish. Fostering a love of Jewish learning is especially important for the smart young people within your community. If young Jews can be inspired to go and learn about Judaism, they will find ways to celebrate and better their lives and the lives of many others, within and beyond the Jewish community.

This, then, is my advice to you who are about to earn semikhah. Make people want to come to synagogue by making the services joyous and intrigue the youth of the congregation with the idea that they not only can, but they must ask questions. If you can do this, I am confident that your success at this great institution will only be a harbinger of many notable contributions to come.

Amen,
Edgar M. Bronfman

This text of Edgar M. Bronfman's letter to Hebrew College's graduating rabbis was shared with the students as part of the Rabbinical Ordination program book, May 31, 2009. 

Photo by Dan Vaillancourt

And what a variety of music was presented: nineteenth-century synagogue music from Germany and Russia, a country-western version of Shalom Aleichem, a lullaby from the Lodz ghetto, a doo-wop Psalm setting, a love song from the Yiddish theater, the premiere of a new work by composer Charles Osborne, and much, much more. The evening ended with the combined choirs singing L'Eyla, a new work by Bostonian composer Nick Page, blending traditional choral music with the South African Mbube style. The lyrics are by Rabbi Ariel Burger, based on the mystical writings of Rabbi Abraham Cook:

There is one who sings the song of the community.
There is one who sings the song of all people.
There is one who sings the song of all creation.
And then there is one who rises with all these songs together:
The song of the self, of the nation, of humanity, and of creation.
It is a simple song, a two-fold song, a three-fold song, and a four-fold song.
It is the Song of Songs of the King in Whom is peace.

See and hear the excitement on YouTube:

—Joshua Jacobson

Dr. Joshua Jacobson is Acting Director of the School of Jewish Music and Founding Director of the Zamir Chorale of Boston.