Wearing multiple kippot—pastor, preacher, counselor, manager, community representative—rabbis rarely have time or the opportunity to delve into Jewish texts for personal study and growth once they graduate from rabbinical school. But text study is exactly the kind of enrichment that many rabbis crave, not only for themselves but also to strengthen their ability to teach others.

With the fall 2007 launch of Oraita: The Institute for Continuing Rabbinic Education, Hebrew College will provide a user-friendly solution to that challenge. Offered twice a year—in mid-fall and mid-winter—the program includes a five-day retreat with approximately 30 rabbis from around the country and master teachers, followed by continued learning and havruta study, with a partner, online. The mix of a retreat and online study enables participants to enjoy intensive person-to-person study in a relaxed setting, then continue learning at home while fulfilling their professional duties.

The inaugural retreat, October 14–19 at Camp Yavneh’s Retreat Center in Northwood, N.H., will feature Dr. Arthur Green, Rector of the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College, and Dr. Melila Hellner-Eshed of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

While other continuing education programs for rabbis do exist, Dr. Natan Margalit, Director of Oraita, which means Torah in Aramaic, underscores the unique quality of Hebrew College’s new institute. “We are forging a path in text study and want to integrate the best of the deep, inspirational and personal study of the bet midrash with the highest intellectual standards of the university,” he says. Margalit hopes that Oraita will help to create a well-rounded culture of lifelong learning for rabbis, in collaboration with other continuing education programs—such as those at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, which focuses on meditation, and Synagogues: Transformation and Renewal (STAR), which focuses on rabbinic leadership.

Open to rabbis of all denominations, Oraita will introduce new topics, texts and teachers each semester, welcoming new participants as well as repeaters. Possible topics include Prayer: Personal and Communal; Israel and Diaspora; Creating Contemporary Midrash; Judaism and the Natural World; Philosophy of Law; Judaism and Healing; and Re-Reading the Hasidic Masters. The Oraita faculty will be selected for their expertise in Jewish texts, as well as their ability to communicate the passion, humanity and the relevant, living theology of the texts. Master teachers will include several Hebrew College Rabbinical School faculty, as well as scholars from Brandeis, Harvard and Hebrew University, among others. The program is funded by generous grants from the Lasko Foundation and the Legacy Heritage Fund Limited.

Margalit hopes that Oraita will help bring learning to the forefront of rabbis’ many professional roles. Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, Dean of the Rabbinical School, also emphasizes that the program is about renewal. “We’re listening to the voices of the past through the texts, everything from biblical literature to rabbinic literature, Talmud, legal codes, medieval commentaries, mystical literature and Hasidic texts,” she says. “The act of learning, itself, is really an act of spiritual renewal.”

For more information about Oraita, please contact Natan Margalit at nmargalit@hebrewcollege.edu or by phone at 617-559-8617.




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