I had a number in my mind: it was a percentage based on how committed I was to beginning rabbinical school. It had been the same percentage for the past seven years. Yes, it was that many years of thinking, debating, reflecting, wondering, and agonizing: Would I ever go to rabbinical school? When would the choice of becoming a rabbi finally come to some kind of a definitive answer? And so, for seven years these questions stewed and gestated at a meager commitment level of 20 percent. As you already know, most statisticians could have told me that after seven years at a 20 percent commitment level, the chances of me choosing this path were pretty slim.
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.