Yeah, it's November. We're more than half way through the semester. But unlike my recent summer session review, how about a review of a normal week for Fall Semester written DURING Fall Semester?! Of course, no week is normal. There are always special programs, speakers, etc. Hopefully, though, this will provide a taste of a relatively normal week in my life.
Grammar
We begin with biblical grammar. This is a class where we learn the nuts and bolts of the Hebrew language as it is used in the Bible. The class is taught by an incredible woman named Sima. She's the kind of person who will say things like (and these are all real quotations), "Oh I'm so sorry I just made that mistake. I will go to the Kotel after class." or in reference to the letter ayin (which is usually silent in modern pronunciation), a student said, "You don't tend to hear it." To which she replied emphatically, "You don't tend to PRONOUNCE it!" Or "Sarah Imanu (our matriarch), Rachel Imanu, Tovah…she wasn't imanu." Or while discussing whether the city Beer Sheva is masculine or feminine in Hebrew, "Have you ever been there? There's no way Beer Sheva is feminine." Or "If the text is not vocalized, only the context will help you. Or God." Or "There are flying chickens, okay. There are flying students when they're not with me." Suffice it to say, she keeps the class interesting! I'm learning a great deal, though, even though it is one of the more challenging classes I'm taking.
Hebrew
This class is the same as the summer Hebrew ulpan. Same teacher, same class, mostly a continuation of the same material. The hours have gone down, though, to make room for other classes. Instead of about 16 hours a week of Hebrew, we now only have about 7. It's still intensive Hebrew, though, don't you worry!
2nd Temple History
This is a class I just cannot sink my teeth into. Yes, this is a really important time in Jewish history (but really, isn't EVERY period of Jewish history important?), but history is just something I have difficulty getting motivated to accomplish. If I have learned anything in the process to get to this point in my life, however, it's that it doesn't matter whether or not I'm passionate about the material; sometimes the task just needs to get done. That's how I'm approaching this class. Don't get me wrong, the teacher is incredible and extremely well learned. But do I really care about Menelaus? Not really. (Just in case you're wondering, I did properly ID him on my recent mid-term… He replaced Jason as High Priest in 171, changed position of High Priest to be representative of the crown in Judea instead of the Jewish nation, and helped Antiochus plunder the Temple’s treasury. He was also seen as a puppet by the Jewish community. Boo yah.)
Minchah/Text of the Week
This is always a treat. Every week, two students (sometimes just one, but usually a student will lead and another student will serve as "Cantor") lead our community in an afternoon service called Minchah. I led the service once (blog post here), I served as "Cantor" for another classmate, and other students have started calling on me to play guitar for their services (which I am thrilled to do!). I love these moments because I get to learn from and am inspired by my fellow classmates. Even today, my classmate Rebecca led the service and encouraged us to stay focused and find the intention in our seemingly rote practices. When I felt my phone vibrate during the Amidah, I told myself, "Don't pay attention to it. Stay focused." And sure enough, it worked! Thanks Rebecca!
After the service, we get to learn a text from one of the incredible faculty on campus. Sometimes the text is from Torah, sometimes from Talmud, and sometimes it's a collection of texts towards a certain end (such as when one of the Hebrew teachers brought in a collection of texts about freeing the captive shortly after Gilad Shalit was released). However it's presented, it is always fascinating.
Rabbinical Elective
This is another really cool class. After a day of lots of Hebrew, some history, and some praying, this is the chance to help tie it all together. This is, in fact, the only class that we have where we are broken up into programs. For the Rabbis, we get two 6 session mini-courses from four different Rabbis on our campus. The first mini-course was taught by Rabbi Michael Marmur, the VP of Academia for HUC-JIR. He is an INCREDIBLE teacher and I loved every minute I spent with him in the class. The course was about what it means to be a Reform Jew. We had to read at least 150 pages of texts about Reform Judaism and then write a paper. The paper title had to include some variation of the theme of "Why I am a Reform Jew." Some people changed the title to "Why, I AM a Reform Jew," while others wrote, "Why am I a Reform Jew?" My friend Michael titled his paper, "Aw Crap, I AM a Reform Jew." It was fascinating to see my development from my admissions essay to this paper, since I covered a similar topic in the former. It was a fantastic class. This half of the semester, we are learning about text study with one of the other Rabbis here. He has a very different approach, but I am still learning a lot. More importantly, I'm also learning about what it means to be an editor when putting together text studies in order to teach a certain lesson.
And that's a "normal" Sunday! It's long, but no longer than any other day. It's engaging and spiritually fulfilling. It is the most rounded day of the week based on what we do in the various times. It's a wonderful way to start the week.
No comments:
Post a Comment