A number of years ago, I was exposed to Jewish learning in a different way.  Instead of the boring lecture style of a classroom, I was in a group of 3 where one of us was the leader and would guide us into a discussion of Jewish text.  We spent months over a weekly lunch discussing the book of Daniel.  It was fun and interesting and something that I looked forward to each and every week.  It was very unlike my Hebrew School experience which I found boring.  I never thought that learning Jewish texts could be both fun and interesting.  I learned that I was wrong.

Since then, I have had the opportunity to learn with a few different people.  It’s something that I enjoy as I have found it to be intellectually challenging.  With a good learning partner, it’s not about the dry words, it’s about how the words come to life.  What can we learn from the words and the teachings that apply to our lives TODAY?  How does it impact the choices we make now?

I want to share a few examples of this from my own life and experiences. 

Many years ago, at UF Hillel, I gave a D’var Torah (sermon) on one of the High Holidays.  I talked about how for many years, I found the Torah to be a dusty old scroll.  It wasn’t relevant.  It wasn’t that interesting, especially since I didn’t speak Hebrew.  And, quite honestly, I preferred the movie (The 10 Commandments, still a favorite.)   I shared how I was exposed to this different type of Torah learning.  How it was a discussion and debate.  How I could ask questions and disagree and argue my points of view with another person.  They would argue back, and it would be a passionate conversation.  We would understand each other and sometimes agree at the end, and sometimes still disagree.  How it was intellectually challenging even if I wasn’t a Torah scholar and couldn’t speak Hebrew. 

One of my most memorable experiences with this type of learning happened in Israel when we visited Hebron, where the tombs of the Matriarchs and Patriarchs are (other than Rachel).  We sat between the tombs of the Patriarch Abraham and the Matriarch Sarah, which was surreal by itself, and discussed the story when God told Sarah she was going to have a baby when she was 90 years old, and she laughed.  My friend Harry Rothenberg led the learning session.  What did that mean?  What could it mean?  We dissected the story and the different possibilities.  It was fascinating hearing all the different possible interpretations of this story.  At the end, Harry shared his interpretation.  How it was really a love story between Abraham and Sarah.  How it was about communication and honesty between partners.  How it described not just their relationship but included relationship lessons for us today.  It wasn’t anything that I had contemplated before we sat down or during the conversation.  And then I thought how amazing it was to be talking about the love story of Abraham and Sarah while sitting between their burial tombs.  It is an experience I will never forget.

A year later, back in Israel with Harry, we were climbing Masada.  I’ve climbed Masada with both the snake path and Roman path many times.  The Roman path is pretty easy and quick.  The snake path is longer, harder, and more meaningful.  This morning we took the snake path.  I had been having some health issues and probably should have take the cable care to the top instead, but I was stubborn and chose poorly.  As I was making the long climb, I found myself needing to stop very frequently to catch my breath and let my heart rate slow down.  Everybody else passed me and a couple of friends slowed down to stay with me as we made the climb together.  Harry started late and came upon us.  He joked about me resting until I told him what was going on.  He then said he’d walk with us slowly as well.  I then challenged him – use this moment to teach me a little Torah.  I figured I had stumped him!!  Instead, he thought for a minute and told me the following story.

When Moses led the Jewish people to the edge of entering Israel, he was not permitted to enter the land.  He begged God thousands of times to please change his mind and let him enter the land.  God would not relent and change his mind.  However, after all of Moses’s pleading, God told Moses to climb to the top of the mountain where he would be able to see all of Israel.  Moses climbed the mountain and looked out at all of Israel.  His heart broke into pieces at the beauty and that he wouldn’t be able to enter the land.  It is those pieces of Moses’s heart in all of us that creates our longing and love for Israel. 

Harry took a Torah lesson, applied it to the mountain we were climbing, and our love and passion for Israel.  It was a beautiful moment.  He has a weekly video blog that I encourage you to check out. It’s 3-4 minutes and I find it interesting each week.

When I lived in Seattle, I spent some time with Rabbi Levitin, the head of Chabad for the Pacific Northwest.  One day at lunch, he was talking about a big talk he was about to give.  The topic was about surrogacy and donor sperm/eggs.  He then went to the Torah to cite passages that apply to various circumstance for surrogacy.  Something we couldn’t contemplate at the time of the Torah, yet it applies today.  We discussed how it might affect a couple if it was the man’s sperm and a donor’s egg.  What if it was donor sperm and the woman’s egg?  And what if it was donor sperm and a donor egg?  Did it matter if the egg was implanted in a surrogate or in the woman who wanted the baby?  Is there a difference in how parents would treat a child they ended up having biologically instead of one of the other ways?  Fascinating topics and discussion points, all tied back to Torah lessons and commentators from centuries ago.

Now I learn with Rabbi Ehrenkranz from JOIN Orlando.  Each week we meet to study and learn Torah.  We meet in a public place, usually a Starbucks or Krispy Kreme.  While I don’t wear a kippah all the time, I put one on when I learn Torah out of respect and in honor of what I am doing.  So we sit in public, both wearing kippot, our siddurs open, reading out loud and discussing what we are reading.  We also use the Sefaria app (a free download and really a great resource that is now adding Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sachs teachings to it) to study what the commentators said over thousands of years.  We discuss, often debate, and I push him to better explain to me the things I either don’t understand or don’t agree with.  Most of the time he is able to do it but there are still things that I struggle with and that’s ok.  It’s part of the process.  I just hope that I don’t frustrate him too much with my questions and challenges!

Usually nobody bothers us, but I remember one time when a man came over and asked if we were doing bible study.  When we told him yes, his response was, “Cool!” and he walked away.  As I think about what happened in the UK yesterday when a man was threatened with arrest because he was wearing a kippah while a pro-Palestinian march was going on because him being Jewish was threatening to them, I am grateful we can learn publicly in Orlando.  I also wonder when/if that will change here. 

On two of my last three trips to Israel, I had the chance to go to a Yeshiva in Jerusalem on Thursday night for an hour-long learning session from 11 pm until midnight.  Usually I’m asleep well before 11 pm (I have gotten old).  I was worried I would fall asleep in the middle of it and embarrass myself.  Yet when it started, it was interesting and exciting.  It was a legal discussion.  It was back and forth.  Voices raised a bit.  Excitement when somebody thought they had the answer.  Disappointment when the explanation showed they were wrong but vindication when their thought process was affirmed.  The hour went fast.  The Rabbi teaching us shared his explanation.  It was great.  And then we had chicken poppers and cholent while hanging out.  What a fun night.  So much fun that it now happens in Orlando as well.  I don’t go often but enjoy it when I do.  There is a good crowd of regular people like me, not Torah scholars, who enjoy the back and forth.  We have to think thoroughly.  We build off prior lessons.  We do it together. 

Being Jewish is often seen as being a burden.  In fact, Rabbi Ehrenkranz and I talked this week about how being Jewish means you are taking on more responsibilities.  How we are the chosen people because we have chosen to take on these responsibilities.  If you are like me, then as a child you weren’t given meaningful Jewish content.  You never had the chance to argue with a teacher about Jewish topics.  It was bible stories and boring things.  Judaism was the thing for my parents and not something that was meaningful to me.  And yet that changed dramatically for me as I got past what and how I was taught as a child and understood the meaning that was possible.  I’m far from Orthodox.  I don’t go to synagogue.  I don’t keep kosher.  Yet I find the teachings of the Torah fascinating.  I find the exploration of Jewish texts to be relevant and impactful.  Hanging mezuzahs, putting on tefillin (occasionally), lighting shabbat candles, the Hanukkiah, baking challah, and other Jewish rituals are meaningful to me.  I’m excited to build a sukkah in my backyard this year.  I don’t think I’ll sleep in it, but I will enjoy building it and eating in it and hanging out in it.  It’s fun.  Judaism can be fun.  Learning Torah can be fun. 

So if you decide you want to start a journey like I did with Jewish learning in this way, let me know.  I’ll find somebody for you to learn with so you can find the joy that I have.  I encourage you to try – I’m willing to bet you won’t be disappointed.