The Adult Learning initiative of Combined Jewish Philanthropies facilitates the continued development of the adult Jewish learning renaissance in the Greater Boston area. Building upon the renewed interest in Biblical and Rabbinic text-based study and increased yearning for spirituality and meaning, the Adult Learning initiative is working with synagogue and community leadership to create community-based models of high quality adult education.
We are currently accepting applications for Ikkarim, our exciting one-year adult learning program for parents of children newborn to five years, and Me’ah, an intensive two-year adult learning program offered in conjunction with Hebrew College. Pathways provides Jewish learning opportunities for adults in their 20’s and 30’s in the Greater Boston area.
Additionally, we present the Genesis Forum, a free lunchtime learning series in downtown Boston. All classes are taught by accomplished scholars and professors from the Boston Jewish community. We also host special events such as the annual lectures offered by Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg.
Learning with a master teacher: Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg
On Tuesday, May 5, 2009, over 300 adults from across greater Boston gathered as a community of learning in Framingham and in Brookline to drink in the startling insights and erudition of Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, the Jerusalem-based Torah scholar. The crowd was especially diverse - young and old, rabbis, educators, volunteers - and the venues were absolutely abuzz with anticipation.
At noon Zornberg delved into the talmudic supposition that Moses may have authored the Book of Job. She presented midrashic material on Moses' obsession with why bad things happen to good people (and Rabbi Harold Kushner was in the audience to hear it!), and illustrated her points with reference to a series of William Blake’s engravings.
In the evening Zornberg discussed the patriarch Jacob's plaintive hope for calm, versus the need for unleashing "wildness" in order to allow for creativity. Zornberg brought Tanach, midrash, rabbinic and hasidic texts, as well as Kafka, and countless contemporary references to bear.
Pathways, CJP’s program of learning for young adults, held a successful pre-lecture dinner to review the sources in preparation for the talk that followed. Deborah Kram, CJP’s Director of Adult Learning, summed the experience of the full day as “extraordinary events of both substantive scholarship and community building at its best.”
For more information on these programs, click on the links at the top-right corner of the page. For more detailed information, please call Brian at 617-457-8775 or e-mail adultlearning@cjp.org.
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