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Learning for Learning Sake at the East Coast Kallah
January 22, 2002Comments (0) | Add | E-mail this to a friend  A group of 50 Hillel professionals from up and down the East Coast recently experienced a role reversal: They became the students.
The professionals who attended the first East Coast Kallah of Hillel's Joseph Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Learning studied Jewish texts and learned new approaches to integrating Jewish content into their programs. The East Coast Kallah followed a similar successful program in the Midwest in November.
The learning institute, held at the Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center outside of Baltimore, was an opportunity for participants to interact with regional colleagues and to "learn for learning's sake." Participants studied texts that compared the First Amendment to the Jewish ethics of speech and that explored the Jewish views of good and evil in light of the terrorist attacks of September 11. The professionals attended clinics on the observance of Shabbat and Passover, and sharpened their skills in giving Divrei Torah.
"Professionals understand that Jewish learning is a lifelong pursuit, " explained Meyerhoff Center Director Rabbi Avi Weinstein. "It is personally fulfilling and provides a model for students to emulate."
"The clinics gave professionals the opportunity to explore topics with fresh perspectives," said Hannah Graham, Iyyun Fellow at Hillel's International Center. "If we're trying to help students develop their Jewish identities, we need to do that for ourselves as well."
The Meyerhoff Center hopes to put the institutes "on wheels" with future Kallahs in selected locations around the United States. The Kallahs supplement the Meyerhoff Center's ongoing work at Hillel conferences and through the Internet.
The Meyerhoff Center's innovative text of Rev. Martin Luther King's 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech was distributed widely in January. Hillel Foundations around the country used the text for study sessions on the King Holiday. The text was also distributed to historically black colleges through a partnership with the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations and the United Jewish Communities made the text available on their Web sites.
Since the creation of the King document last year, the Meyerhoff Center has prepared Talmud-inspired texts on the First Amendment, the Preamble to the Constitution, Israel's national anthem and a selection from the Declaration of Independence.
Earlier this month, Hillel recently presented a copy of the Declaration of Independence text to MIT graduate student Jay Hancock, a descendent of the family of Declaration of Independence signer John Hancock and a recent birthright israel participant.
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