From the Rabbi's Study
LEARNING IS BENDING AND STRETCHING
December 2003

My colleague, Rabbi Howard Cohen, has been engaged in a multi-year study of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Lest you think of this as a dry, academic exercise, may I suggest that it could also be … good exercise! We have a very fun poster at home from which my son, Isaac, is learning the aleph-bet. Each letter/shape is formed by a lively drawing of one or two children, bending and blending their limbs into the shapes of the letters.

Vav is easy – just stand straight with your arms by your side, and you form this letter, which can be a vowel or a consonant. Hey takes two – one bent over at a 90-degree angle, arms outstretched, and other crouched down just under the hands. You get the picture!

(And some of our adult members have just themselves taken on the task of penetrating this weird and wonderful language system, with a crash course in Beginning Reading, which continues this month.)

But back to the teaching from Rabbi Cohen. He created this drash – creative explanation – about the word halleluyah, and the Hebrew letters that form it, that says a great deal about learning itself. This Hebrew word that literally means “praise God” is formed of two lameds, two heys, one yod, and one vav. The yod is the smallest letter, just a jot – about a quarter or third of the length of the straight-line vav. The lamed, on the other hand, is one of the tallest. Picture a stork, and you get the profile of a lamed, with its “head and neck” craning up over all the other letters.

Rabbi Cohen points out that lamed is the only letter that, when written in the Torah scroll, that protrudes above all the other letters, even those with the extra decorations in the scroll called crowns. Our word, halleluyah, is form of two of these tall shapes, plus the four letters that form God’s name – yod, heh, vav, heh. (If this is getting hard to visualize, borrow a Kesher School student, if you don’t have one in your household, and get them to help you!)

The Hebrew word for learning also has two lameds, suggesting that to learn involves really stretching oneself, breaking through barriers, pushing the limits, not unlike what we might do in taking on an exercise regimen.

So halleluyah is a great word for celebrating all of our learning. Says Rabbi Cohen: “It has two lameds surrounded by the letters of God's name. These two lameds can be understood to represent the learning we strive to bring together through our existence in two
civilizations: secular and the sacred. When we bring them together the result wants to be shouted out with a huge HALLELUYAH!”

Whatever your starting point, your engagement in Jewish study is something to celebrate. In our BONIM class last month – our Family learning program for Bar and Bat Mitzvah teens and their parents – we learned that 83 is the age at which a second Bar/t Mitzvah is traditionally celebrated – 13 years plus the ancient lifespan of 70 years! Believe me, it’s never too late.

December overlaps the Hebrew month of Kislev, and the eight days of Hannukah. This festive holiday can be celebrated on multiple levels. One of its “adult” meanings focuses on rededication – the literal meaning of the holiday’s name. Lighting your candles this month, perhaps you could dedicate yourself to learning 8 new things about Judaism this coming secular year.

Traditionally, we are told that we must not “use” the lights of the Hannukah menora, or engage in work. It’s a reason we use an additional candle, the shamash, so that whatever light we derive we can ascribe to that one! Playing games, especially dreydl games, singing songs, dancing, telling stories – these are some of the traditional candle-light time activities.

Maybe some of this time can also be transformed into a launching of your rededication to Jewish learning. Read a book about Hannukah. Ask some children to tell you what they know about this holiday. Have a discussion. Share some on-line materials. The holiday’s many themes offer great starting points for discussions about Judaism and contemporary values. Do we still believe in miracles? Can Judaism inform the search for “light” – either tangible, as in renewable resources, or more spiritual? Would we embrace a contemporary Jewish hero who was like Judah Macabbee?

The questions, and the quest, are endless. Go forth and study!

Rabbi Elizabeth Bolton