By Donald H. Harrison 

Jewish education?  There was a time when the very idea made people wince.  They’d imagine an old guy walking around the cheder with a ruler behind his back.  Stray too far from the rote recitation in Hebrew and whack, your knuckles would be rapped.  Then this melamed would demoralize you with a few choice phrases detailing how lazy a student you were, and how dim your prospects were for being anything but a no-goodnik! 

This denunciation was in Yiddish, of course; the “teacher” wouldn’t want to soil Hebrew, the Holy Language, with such mundane problems as those presented by your miserable existence.  Was there any wonder some kids preferred to play baseball on Sundays, or go to the mall, or, heck, even do algebra homework for public school—anything to avoid that?

On Sunday, January 22^nd, the Agency for Jewish Education is staging a Limmud—a day of Jewish learning—that should make such people stop shuddering, and start clapping, when the subject of Jewish education comes up—whether it is education for children or for adults.

If AJE Director Alan Rusonik, his staff, and numerous volunters realize their expectations, teens, parents and even teachers will be stimulated by experiencing Jewish education that is far more exciting, stimulating, fun, and even a little wilder and crazier than what we, so far, have known.

In that one jammed day, AJE  will introduce San Diego to a greater variety of methodologies for teaching Jewish subjects than some of us could imagine.  A phalanx of out-of-town experts will share with attendees the bounty of their educational experiments elsewhere.

Limmud replaces the annual “Festival of Jewish Learning,” which sandwiched four or five lunchtime lectures each weekday at various venues around the county between some larger weekend events.  Rusonik believes more impact, more critical mass, more sizzle,  will result from having all that educational energy come together in one place—with seminars, lectures, demonstrations, and even a concert competing with each other for attention. 

If  there is more going on Sunday, January 22^nd, than anyone reasonably can be expected to learn, well, that’s okay, says Rusonik.  The idea is not so much for attendees to retain a set of facts as it is for them to experience how much fun Jewish learning can be.  They, thereby, will be encouraged to go to the synagogues, community centers, and senior centers throughout San Diego County where copious amounts of Jewish learning already is taking place. 

Rusonik notes that many wonderful Jewish classes and teachers already are in place in San Diego—but, outside of their individual institutions,  they seem to be virtual secrets to the rest of the Jewish community.  So, AJE will be passing out at Limmud a 32-page catalogue, Makor, listing the types of courses being offered, the places where they are available, and, of course, their times and dates.  Makor, which is Hebrew for “source,”  also will be distributed at delicatessens, centers, and on the AJE’s website, www.ajesd.org

How is modern-day Jewish education different from the old cheder model?  Imagine our melamed’s expression if he happened to sit in on such sessions as these:

  8:15-8:45 a.m.—Rabbi Alan Lew of San Francisco, sometimes called the “Zen rabbi,” will lead a guided meditation for attendees who can get up that early.  From 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. he’ll lecture on “Zen and Jewish strategies for spiritual awakening.”

Is only one of your hands clapping for that particular offering?  There are other options during that hour.  Rabbi Nathan Lauffer, who used to serve as the director of the Wexner Heritage Foundation, will lead a workshop from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. on how to make a Passover seder an exciting learning experience. “I’ve been around the block a couple of times and I thought I knew a lot about Passover until I heard Rabbi Laufer give his talk—he is incredible,” declares Rusonik. 

Would you pass over both these courses?  There still are other possibilities!  From 9:15 a.m. to 10:15 a.m., storyteller Noa Baum will perform a one-woman show, A Land Twice Promised, relating the emotions of the Arab-Israeli struggle from both sides’ perspective.

As they say on late-night television, wait, that’s not all! If you are at the JCC at 9 o’clock there will be four other choices.  Photographer Zion Ozeri will show his works in a lecture entitled “Images of the Jew: Photography and the Diversity of Jewish Life.”  Meanwhile, in a session for new  teachers, Paul Epstein offers a workshop on “Thrilling Theatrer for Tentative Teachers.”  Carol Starin, meanwhile, will discuss with established teachers some of the innovative programs that she helped develop at Seattle’s Bureau of Jewish Education.  And, Vicky Kelman, a pioneer in interactive education for families—in which youngsters and adults actually learn Jewish material together—will demonstrate her craft.

Our melamed might be buggy-eyed by now, yet that comprises only the first session of the Limmud programming..   Between 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. there will be more choices. In one classroom, Dr, Sheldon Rubenfeld will discuss the Nazis’ medical experiments on concentration camp victims—what was learned from them and the ethics of using such information.  In another classroom, master Israeli guide Avraram “Pitch” Maayan will be pitching the upcoming United Jewish Federation community mission to Israel, which he will be leading in April.  (More information about the mission can be found on Federation’s website, www.jewishinsandiego.org) 

Then at 11 a.m., Rabbi Yehudah Fine, known as the “Times Square rabbi,” holds a session from which other adults will be barred—this one is for teens only.  He’ll tell the youngsters about his work with teenage drug addicts, runaways, and prostitutes who are living and dying in the core of the Big Apple.  Adults are excluded to permit the teens to discuss their own behaviors frankly.

At 11:30 a.m., Alan Hoffman, deputy general of  the Jewish Agency for Israel, will be the keynote speaker.  Originally, Israel’s Minister of Education Limor Livnat was to have occupied this time slot, but with the domestic political situation in Israel so volatile as a result of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon first creating a new political party and then suffering a major stroke, Livnat felt compelled to cancel her trip to San Diego. But Rusonik says that  in Hoffman Limmud will have a dynamic speaker to take her place and talk about educational interactions between Israelis and us Jews of the Diaspora

Following Hoffman’s  address, students, teachers, and adults will find seats in classrooms, on the stage of the auditorium, in the galleria, in fact, almost everywhere, to enjoy a kosher box lunch from Lang’s. The lunch is included in the prices for all tickets for the event: adults, $36 for the full day or $25 for a half day; college students $25 for a full day; teenagers, $10, and children below bar mitzvah age down to 5, $5.  For children between the ages of 2 and 4, not only will there be lunch, there will also be child care available.

Attendees will ess-ess in a hurry in order to select from another multiplicity of choices filling the 1:15-2:15 learning slot.  In one room, Paul Epstein will be back to teach a course designed particularly for teaching assistants—the students who serve as madrachim in religious schools around the country.  He plans on building upon the theme that Moses learned that he needed to delegate his authority.  Rabbi Fine also will be back, however,  this time he’ll be talking to parents.  His arresting title: “Raisings Cain and Jane: What Your Kids Are Doing When You’re Not Around.”  Rabbi Laufer also will make an encore appearance, this time a lecture intended for leaders from synagogues and other Jewish institutions around the county.  He’ll present Moses as a model for Jewish leadership.  

There will be a new face in this time slot as well—and I smile just imagining our old-fashioned melamed’s reaction.  Joshua Nelson, both Jewish and African American, has pioneered stirring gospel-style Jewish music that has been trumpeted by Oprah Winfrey as “the next big thing.”

In his classroom session, Nelson will discuss how music can be used to raise the level of spirituality.  At 2:30 p.m., he will follow up his lecture with a rousing hour-long concert—which will serve as Limmud’s grand finale.  According to the delighted Rusonik, the concert is likely to have San Diego Jewry  dancing and hand-clapping in the aisles.

“I have to tell you that some of the most jaded people I know, including my daughter, who listen to his music, say that it is pretty cool,” Rusonik said.  “Sometimes Jewish people, we are so proper, we are afraid to let our real emotions, our real spirituality. show, but Joshua breaks through that!”

Hey, maybe even the melamed would put down his ruler and join in!