From top: At the course sampler, Marga Hirsch teaches and learns about the Prophet Elijah. For Adam Gordon, the Summer Institute has brought moments of connection to Judaism. Eleni Litt is hoping to share the “amazing resource” of havura-style learning. Rabbi James Diamond leads a session on the parables of Franz Kafka.
Photos by Marilyn Silverstein
June 10, 2008
The spirit of the havura movement filled The Jewish Center in Princeton on May 18 as a small group of people came together there to share their love for Jewish learning.
The Sunday afternoon course sampler was a window onto the spirit of the National Havurah Committee’s Summer Institute, a weeklong retreat of Jewish learning and community held each summer at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, NH. The institute’s 30th season is set for Aug. 11-17.
The goal of the sampler was to give the community a taste of havura-style learning, which has its roots in the egalitarian, democratic congregations that developed out of a do-it-yourself Jewish trend in the 1970s.
The institute draws its faculty and spirit from long-established havurot that pride themselves on their nondenominational, largely liberal, and Jewishly literate approach to community, as well as from newer, independent minyanim that have been attracting 20-something Jews.
“A lot of us at The Jewish Center…are also longtime havura-niks, and we’re very interested in sharing this kind of teaching,” said Eleni Litt of Princeton, a member of the Conservative shul’s Library Minyan, which initiated the event. “We wanted to share with the congregation this amazing resource right in our own midst.”
Litt has been on the faculty of the institute for the past 13 years.
“It’s really hevruta style,” she said, referring to traditional one-on-one Jewish learning. “Every student is a teacher, and every teacher is a student. It’s just a philosophy of approach. It’s very egalitarian and encouraging of people to take ownership of their own learning and to build on whatever learning they bring.”
Many people in the Jewish community are unfamiliar with the Summer Institute, added Litt’s husband, Neil.
“It’s something we can replicate in miniature at an event like this,” he said. “A lot of people, when they have the experience of this informal, egalitarian study, they get it and they want to do more of it, and hopefully that will happen here today.”
Among the day’s samplings were a class on Franz Kafka taught by Rabbi James Diamond, a lecturer at Princeton University, and a session on the prophet Elijah taught by Marga Hirsch, a teacher at the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School of Philadelphia and a former Summer Institute cochair.
Cherry Hill attorney Adam Gordon, an NHC board member who grew up at The Jewish Center, taught a class on differing visions of American-Jewish community. Author Joe Rosenstein of Highland Park, a founder and former chair of the NHC, led an exploration of the psalms of Hallel. And Eleni Litt, a visual artist and independent scholar, blended art and Torah study in a workshop on Line, Color, Form: The Shape of Torah and the Kabbalah of Color.
In each case, participants were invited to express themselves, to interpret the text, to contribute ideas, and to jump in. The sampler was as much an affirmation for the havura-niks of their love for open, egalitarian learning as it was an introduction for the sprinkling of newcomers there.
“It’s a taste — a taste of the magic that happens at the weeklong institute,” observed NHC board vice chair Sandy Sussman of Princeton. “It’s an open community, without rules. It’s a place to take risks.”
For example, Sussman said, “I thought for years about wearing a tallis, and I took the leap there. It felt safe to take the risk there.”
“The main thing is it’s very diverse and very accepting and you can say anything and it’s just fine,” added Sussman’s husband, Ron Schnur. “The tone is: Everyone has something to teach and everyone has something to learn. Also, the style of learning is adult learning. It’s very communal learning, and people get a sense of that.”
Another Princeton couple, Mel and Shoshana Silberman, said that they value the openness of havura-style learning. “The hallmark is, it’s highly participatory,” said Mel Silverman. “People are empowered to wrestle with Torah text.”
“Everyone’s ideas are valued and there isn’t one right answer,” said Shoshana Silberman. “That enables people to open up and think creatively, and, ultimately, that helps people to wrestle with Jewish texts.
“When you confront a Jewish text, it stays with you,” she added. “This, to me, is the Judaism of the future.”
Act of connection
Ruth Schulman of Princeton said she has been participating in havura-style learning since the late 1960s. “What I love about the institute is that young kids who have grown up with it are now leaders,” she said. “It’s a wonderful learning experience within a community that’s just very special.”
For Ruth Goldston of Princeton — one of three former NHC chairs who were on hand, including Neil Litt and Rosenstein — the essential thing is the sense of community that emerges from that kind of learning.
“We all take turns being teachers. That, to me, is the essence of the learning style — along with hevruta study,” she said. “The idea that you sit with another person and talk about something — that’s an act of learning in the Jewish tradition.”
For Gordon, it is also an act of connection.
“I feel like many of the moments that have connected me to Judaism have come at the National Havurah Institute,” he said. “It’s an amazing experience. It’s intergenerational and interdenominational, from the Orthodox to the unaffiliated, from rabbis to first-time learners. The kind of learning that goes on is so unique.”
He added that having the course sampler at The Jewish Center was very apropos. “This is one of the communities that has produced most of the teachers at the institute,” he said.
Diamond said he is looking forward to teaching an expanded version of his course on Kafka at the upcoming Summer Institute.
“What I like about it is that you’ve got Jews who are both serious and joyful,” he said. “They’re not coming from guilt or victimhood or fear. It’s a Judaism based on joy and affirmation and taking what’s there for us.”
For information about the Summer Institute, visit www.havurah.org.
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