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Me’ah Graduation Reflections
By Kathy Weinman An abbreviated version of the student speech delivered at Hebrew College on May 8, 2016
When I was a teen, I had an uneasy relationship with Jewish education. At Hebrew High School in Michigan, I was kicked out of class for asking questions. It was not until studying Torah as an adult at Temple Israel that I began to appreciate the wisdom, beauty—and challenges—of Jewish text. When Me’ah came to Temple Israel with Rabbi Morrison teaching Bible in the first semester, I signed up.
The Koran calls the Jews “the People of the Book.” Although that particular Book is the Bible, the common heritage of the three Abrahamic religions, in fact the phrase has broader significance for us. The Midrash tells us at Exodus Rabbah that at Sinai God handed down the entire Bible, but also the Mishnah, the Talmud and Aggadah. In the introduction to his Mishneh Torah, Maimonides wrote that Moses also received the Oral Law at Sinai. Me’ah taught us each text has an author or authors, a place of origin and a historical context that together inform meaning. But whether the words were Divinely written or inspired, or simply human-made, Jewish texts have been at the core of our religion and central to our people over the millennia.
Me’ah gave us the gift of those texts. As my classmate, Anne Chalmers, wrote, we learned in Bible that “narrative and legal passages often alternate, mirroring and explicating each other” and that “metaphor conveys meaning to our emotional and physical selves that our rational selves struggle to absorb.” In Rabbinics, we studied how the Jewish people responded to exile by creating the Judaism we know today through the Mishnah, Talmud, Midrash and more. In Medieval, we examined how Jews adopted Islamic forms of expression for their own Hebrew poetry, generally faring better under Muslim than under Christian rule. In Modern, we grappled with the impact of the Enlightenment on the Jewish people; it afforded Jews greater freedom to practice their religion, but also for divergent practices and thought. As fellow student, Dru Greenwood observed, “Now, after learning in bits and pieces, I have a coherent framework of the sweep of the Jewish experience as it evolved and continues to evolve. The pieces fit into a whole!”
But Me’ah wasn’t just about studying the words on the page. We also learned from those described by Leslie Blachman as “outstanding and inspiring” instructors, and from our classmates, whom Alice Leidner called “a wonderful group of bright, energetic, interesting people.” For most of us, Me’ah sparked a desire for continued Jewish study and we’re looking forward to future classes at Temple Israel. I know I speak for all the graduates in thanking Hebrew College and CJP for creating this innovative program and inviting us to learn and, yes, to question together.
