Me’ah Classic at Temple Emanuel, Newton

Literacy, Learning, Legacy: 100 hours of Jewish study. Year one curriculum: Hebrew Bible and Rabbinics.

Fall/Early Winter 2018—Hebrew Bible: Explore the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, through focused discussion of core texts, including:

• The creation stories
• The binding of Isaac
• The Exodus story
• The revelation at Sinai
• The prophetic books

Modern historical and literary approaches will enable you to analyze material through a new lens and gain a deeper understanding of the biblical world.

Schedule for “Bible” with Dr. Lynne Heller: October 23, 30; November 6, 13, 27; December 4, 11, 18; January 8, 15. (Please note: No class on November 20, December 25 or January 1. January 22 reserved for snow/sick day.)

Winter/Spring 2019—Rabbinics: Study texts from the Rabbinic Period (500 BCE to 600 CE), a time when new Jewish leaders, sages, and rabbis emerged and developed rich texts of their own, creating a legal system which has informed and ordered Jewish community, culture, and behavior for the past millennia. Explore the relationship between God and human beings, your understanding of Jewish history and ethics, and the role of ritual in our lives.

Schedule for “Rabbinics” with Rabbi Leonard Gordon: January 29, February 5, 12, 26; March 5, 12, 19, 26; April 2, 9. (Please note: No class on February 19, April 17 and 24. April 30 and May 7 reserved for snow/sick days.)

Financial aid is available for all students. Please contact Sara Brown at sbrown@hebrewcollege.edu.

Instructor Bios:

Rabbi Leonard Gordon co-directs Interfaith Partners for Peace. Rabbi Gordon is rabbi emeritus of the Germantown Jewish Centre which he served as senior rabbi until 2010. He was then senior rabbi at Congregation Mishkan Tefila (Chestnut Hill, MA) until 2016.

With rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary, he has a BA and M Phil from Columbia University, and an MA in Religious Studies from Brown University. In 2018, he earned a Doctor of Ministry degree at the Andover Newton Theological School with a thesis entitled, “Building Interfaith Relationships to Promote Peace.”

Rabbi Gordon has taught comparative religion and Humanities at Columbia University, Kenyon College, and the Ohio State University; and he has taught rabbinic literature, history, philosophy, and liturgy at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Hebrew College Rabbinical School, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. He began teaching for Me’ah in 2018. Among his publications, he was an editor of Mahzor Lev Shalem and is author of the forthcoming article, “A Jew Reads Sura Al Fatiha.”

Dr. Lynne Heller combines a passion for the biblical text and wide-ranging knowledge of it with her academic background in comparative literature and Jewish studies. Deeply committed to teaching adults, she has taught in Hebrew College’s Kol Isha, as well as the Ma’ayan, CJP Genesis and Parenting Through a Jewish Lens programs. She has also taught Bible in the Rabbinical School.

Heller holds a Ph.D. in English and comparative literature from New York University and is a graduate of the MIDRASA, Hebrew Teachers College, established by the Yeshivah of Flatbush in New York City. Her essay, “Teaching to the Head and the Heart: The Power of Weeping,” was published in “Keeping Faith in Rabbis: A Community Conversation on Rabbinical Education” (Avenida Books, 2014).