Monday, November 8, 2010

Global Day of Jewish Learnings




Yesterday, November 7th, Portland took part of the Global Day of Jewish Learnings at Shaarie Torah Synagogue. This was in celebration of Rabbi Aden Steinsaltz's translation of the Talmud from it's original Aramaic and ancient Hebrew that he started doing in 1965 and just now completed.

We studied from 11:15am to 4pm, taking time out for lunch only. This experience was happening all over the world at the same time. We were all studying the same subjects. It was exhilarating. We were taught by Rabbi Brodkin, Rabbi Cahana, Rabbi Dunsker, Jonathan Emanuel, Rabbi Fisher, Rabbi Greenstein, Dorice Horenstein, Rabbi Isaak, Charles Schiffman, Rabbi Stone, Rebitzen Wilhelm, and Rabbi Zuckerman.

This day of study was a first of its kind, so it was exciting to be a part of it and be able to participate. It wasn't just lecturing; the audience did their part by participating and coming up with many answers to questions, and the subjects were quite heavy.

We discussed subjects connected with Ha Shem: Arguing with G-d, Testing G-d, To whom does G-d listen?, Hannah prayer and what makes it work? and other things such as leadership and humility, models of leadership, love and marriage, beauty and romance, examples of empathy, normal or disasterous, and ideas such as the world is a human responsibility.

All these ideas came from Genesis, the Midrash, Maimonides, Rambam, Ecclesiates, Numbers, Samuel, and of course, the Talmud.

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