by joshua brandt
correspondent
As many parents do, Anita Rosen marveled at her young daughter’s ability to wade into uncharted territory. Whether it was roller-skating, tennis or riding a bike — her daughter, now in kindergarten, tackled new ventures with youthful aplomb.
Anita Rosen was both proud and impressed. And she was envious.
“You know, at work, 95 percent of what I do every day is stuff I’ve done before,” said Rosen, who lives in Silicon Valley and runs a software company called ReadyGo. “It makes me senior and experienced and I’m good at it, but it doesn’t expand my brain.
“Seeing my daughter attempt new things makes me reflect on my choices. Most adults shy away from things they’re not good at … If my daughter shied ways from things, she’d spend her time in a cardboard box.”
So, about two years ago, Rosen decided to emulate her daughter and take a big risk. After more than three decades of being separated from any organized Jewish community activity, Rosen took herself “way out of my comfort zone.”
And now, she’s among the inaugural graduates of the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School at the Albert L. Schultz Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto. The school, whose initial program elicited so much response that it’s now offering a graduate elective, originated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, with the goal of fostering Jewish cultural literacy among adults.
“Being away from the Jewish community for so long, I kind of felt like a non-Jew,” Rosen said. “But studying in the rabbinic tradition, where we all sat down to discuss hot-button issues, was really mind-blowing.
“I grew up in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and my Jewish education was by rote. It was really bad. For six hours a week, for six years, I prepared for one day [her bat-mitzvah], that really left me with no thirst for more Jewish knowledge. The passages were difficult enough translate in Hebrew, let alone English.
“But at the Melton school, seeing the process of thought Jewish theologians come up with … on everything ranging from sperm-donorship to gossip is just mind boggling.
“You know, 2,000 years of Jewish history has told us that gossip was just wrong. But about two decades ago a female rabbi said that gossip was perhaps not all bad and is perhaps a good way to discuss the personal issues of the day. That’s the unexpected knowledge that I got at the school,” said Rosen, who is anticipating signing up for the graduate program.
Nechama Tamler, who teaches a Melton class on Jewish ethics and will be teaching the graduate course, Shiv’im Panim: Seven Faces of Wisdom, echoed Rosen’s comments.
“It can be really frustrating for some students, because many more doors are opened than are shut, but that’s part of the beauty of Jewish tradition.
“There are big ideas that are both ancient and applicable to modern life that come to life. It really shows that we’re involved in a dynamic, vibrant and evolving tradition.”
Tamler will teach the graduate class alternately with Rabbi Avroham Levin of Chabad of Palo Alto. Levin, the
son of Rabbi Josef Levin, will be the instructor in the fall,
Tamler next winter. The class will focus on Genesis.
Mountain View resident Leah Strauss, who was discouraged from getting her bat mitzvah when she was a child — she remembers being told “girls didn’t get bat mitzvahed” — said that she had an opportunity to explore “Judaism’s collective memory and strength” while attending the school.
“When you’re younger, you take notes and study for tests, and that’s kind of the end of things. But the commitment here [at the Melton School] is to gain something spiritually and practically that can be passed on to succeeding generations.” And as a mother, she hopes to instill that knowledge in her children.
Tamler concurred. She cites Isadore Twersky, the late director of Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, who once wrote that a goal of Jewish educators should be to expose as many people as possible to the “mystery and romance of Jewish history … and the power and profundity of Jewish faith.”
“That’s the type of thirst for knowledge I see in my students,” said Tamler. “It’s like ‘let me at it … I’m really turned on to this stuff, and I want more.’”
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California