Dunking Rachael: Hebrew Student Slacker Club

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Hebrew Student Slacker Club

I have found myself thinking like a hack comedian lately……. I say…”what’s up with this final letter stuff!” ....N Soffit - Phey-Soffit - Chaph-soffit!!

The website e-how puts it nicely:

“While there are only 22 letters in the aleph-bet, there are differing forms of certain letters when used at the end of a word---called the "soffit" form. The letters Mem (M), Nun, (N), Kaf (K), Peh (P) and Tsadik (TS) have soffit forms”

Well guess what, I do not think it is nice…no, not at all…it is frustrating, challenging and just plain hard! I had my weekly class last night. The good news is that I made my goal. I am no longer the worst student in the class; I am the second worst student in the class!

So now onward and upward!

I have been strategizing on how to take this to the next level. In service of getting out of the Hebrew Student Slacker club, I am going for an eye exam. Really, I think I need a new prescription! I can not differentiate the subtle difference between some of these letters. Additional I have enlisted my husband in this quest. He has become a great resource. He has even found me flash cards, and web lessons. Every Tuesday night, the day before Hebrew hell, he helps me go over the pages we will be reading in class. He isn’t a push over, he makes me sound it out, and only once did he say “you really do have a hard time with this.” This was after I had said crazy a word 3 times in a row…remember I am the poster child for “LD”, Learning Disabilities and dyslexia! Also my fellow students are starting to rally around my cause! They have picked up on the things I do to help me remeber vowels etc. For example for "O" as in "over",The women who sits next to me pats my head , as in "over my head" after I have said ooooo a few many times. This team work is helping. It takes a village, or at least a shull to teach me hebrew!

Now this week we have homework. There is a Bar Mitzvah this Saturday in Shull. We are supposed to follow the haftarah and see if he misses any words. My thought is the Cantor works with these kids, and he must know how well this Saturday’s reading will go. I have been told there is a site on line that has audio for all the haftarahs. I think I will use this to get a jump start on how it is suposed to sound.

So I am ready!......I’m going to learn this language if it is the last thing I do!

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Beit Din test Question #22 "If you were to join the Jewish people......."

22) If you were to join the Jewish people, what considerations would guide you to that decision? How did your course help you to recognize some meaningful ideas to Judaism? Are there some things you have learned in the course that you find difficult to accept into your life?

I have been a thinker and a seeker for most of my life. I have explored many faiths, been involved in and have a keen interest in philosophy and psychology. I was raised in an Irish/Italian Catholic home. I lived as a Buddhist/Unitarian Universalist for most of my adult life and previously was married for 20 years to a Jewish man who did not practice his faith of origin. At the birth of my child, now 19, I sought to learn as much as I could about Judaism in order to expose this child to the faith of part of her ancestors. So I come to this new point in my life with all my experiences, knowledge and aspirations.

But the question remains how did I come to consider conversion? It is though love that the door of conversion was opened. I fell in love with a Jewish man who participates in his religion, yet he did not require me to convert, pressure me, or in any way attempt to persuade or force me. This exploration of faith was of my choosing, my volition, nurtured by love.

Clearly I am not dogmatically tied to my faith of origin, seeing that the religious expressions which dominated my adult life have been mostly non-theistic. The major change/challenge for me is in the consideration/acceptance of a theistic understanding of existence. Through explorations with my sponsoring Rabbi, reading, (lots of reading!) and the Hillel class I have come to an understanding of the divine, a place of relationship with a theistic point of view that resonates within me.

To help to articulate this I refer to the work of existentialist thinker and Jewish educator Franz Rosenzweig.

“The function of religion, according to Rosenzweig, is not to erect theological systems or establish universal truths, but to lead to experience of God, starting from one's own personal existence. He "commends 'the Pharisees of the Talmud and the saints of the Church' for knowing that 'man's understanding extends only so far as his doing.' Religious observance is, in effect, the doing of one's religious convictions; the two cannot be separated."
“(Time Magizine Monday, Jan. 01, 1951 , http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,814185,00.html)

For Rosenzweig the written word was to be less important than the living exchange, for it is in the doing that the relationship to God will manifest. This idea blends well with my own mindfulness practices. These practices express that it is in the awareness of the moment, the only moment we truly have, where peace and divinity can be experienced.
Through my answers on this exam, my participation in the class and my meetings with my sponsoring Rabbi, I believe I clearly present that I am coming to know, and hopefully I am beginning to understand the meaningful ideas in relationship to Judaism. Clearly there is so much to learn, and experience.

I am most taken by the direct experience of the divine associated with taking on the laws and practices of this ancient faith. I have aspirations to practice in this tradition, but once again they can be best articulated through Rosenzweig:
“Rosenzweig’s approach was subjective also in connection with the mitzvot, Jewish observances. He did think that he would one day become a fully observant Jew, but believed in the gradual approach in which the observances slowly made their impact by “ringing a bell” for him. Typical of this approach is Rosenzweig’s answer to someone who asked him whether he wore tefillin [phylacteries]: “Not yet,” he replied.”
(My Jewish Learning.com http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history_community/Modern/IntellectualTO/Rosenzweig.htm)

Like the bell of mindfulness practice, the mitzvot, the mindfulness practice of Judaism, will take time to incorporated and to resonate within. Like the ringing of the mindfulness bell, or the sounding of the Shofar, the act of doing Judaic practices pierces the daily, the mundane and hopefully will help to awaken me to an even richer and more connective relationship with the Jewish people and the divine.