The Israelites prepared for the Exodus with gold and bread, not by learning how to swim. Despite a land-locked life, we are taught in the Babylonian Talmud that Nachshon walked up to his face in the water before it parted for the masses (b. Sota 37a). I felt similarly unprepared and submerged on my first day in the classroom and…
Tag: interfaith
Pursuing Justice and Teamwork With Bell Peppers
I spent my summer teaching kids to pursue peace and justice for their immediate communities and the world beyond them. Kids4Peace is a day camp that aims to educate youth about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Participants learn how to create equality and peace in their respective communities. The camp lasts only four days, but each day is jam-packed with motivating,…
Encounters with God and the Other in Sacred Service
As a Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati fellow during the summer of 2016, I helped Hillel at Miami University prepare for its yearly open house, held during the university’s Alumni Weekend. Instead of creating programs, I tried to foster relationships and empower alumni to reconnect with their time as Jewish students at Miami University. Hillel staff and I displayed newspapers that…
Thank Goodness for Mistakes
The first big programming event I led as a rabbinic intern at Congregation Beth Adam was a mixer with fourteen-year-old Israeli scouts and their Beth Adam host families. The goal of the evening was to help the Israelis get to know the Americans as well as introduce them to both American Judaism and Beth Adam Judaism, which is its own…
Ask the Question
What happens when we ask a question? A few weeks ago, I found myself sitting in the Teller Lounge on the historic Cincinnati campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion with an Episcopal priest and a Muslim university chaplain — me in leggings and a denim shirt, the priest in a tweed suit, and the chaplain in a brightly…
Teaching Interfaith Cooperation: An Example of Service-Learning as Ethical Learning
I disagree with the ethic undergirding the oft-quoted rabbinic aphorism “the study of Torah is equal to them all” (Mishnah Peah 1:1). I disagree because the rabbis articulate in this statement a worldview in which “[l]earning Torah was…the supreme commandment.”[1] Chaim Stern in Gates of Prayer amended “the study of Torah is equal to them all” to read “‘the study…