Rabbi Silver
I had the good fortune to study with Chancellor Eisen in a class on Conservative
Judaism in my fourth year of Rabbinical School. During that class, the Chancellor
said that every student should read Franz Rosenzweig’s 1924 open letter to Martin
Buber.
He never assigned it -- but with a subtle suggestion like that from the Chancellor,
you listen.
In the correspondence between these two giants of Jewish thought, that Rosenzweig
self-titles “The Builders,” he outlines two main suggestions for Jewish life.
Firstly: one cannot view the path from the heights, but only walk it, and however far
one has walked, one is always on “the first lap.” In other words, you need to get into
the trenches of Torah study. There are no shortcuts.
Second: our goal as educators is to facilitate the journey from the path of Torah
learning, to the pathlessness of transcendence. And we can’t skip a step to get there.
Translation from the philosophy-speak: getting in the trenches has a purpose – to
facilitate how the path of Torah leads to meaning and relationship: Relationships in
concentric circles – with self, among family, among Jews, among the entirety of
creation, and with God.
Rosenzweig addresses the central trope that has been on my mind so often in recent
years as a teacher and mentor: In a world of competing ideologies and ideas, what is
the enduring power of Torah?
As he crafted his Lehrhaus in Frankfort, Rosenzweig built an institution -- an
educational platform into the future -- to navigate the path of Torah, its laws and
wonder, to labor upon that path to move toward pathlessness.
In that way, as children of God, he urged us all to be both builders and
understanders of Torah.
So why Torah?
In the words of Rosenzweig:
“We need stronger safeguards than our instincts. We may do what is in our power
to remove obstacles; we can and should make free our ability and power to act. But
the last choice is not within our will; it is entrusted to our ability.”
I think Franz Rosenzweig would have been proud of the community that we have
built here at CJHS. I’ll call it the Lehrhaus of Deerfield.
Rabbi Silver
For but one anecdote of many:
During our Senior Israel Experience this year, which senior Nate Swetlitz referred to
yesterday in his winning essay, I was most proud of how our students used their
learning to question the speakers, and in turn themselves. One of the central themes
of our trip was “How does Israel function as both a Jewish and democratic state?” In
meeting Israelis from across the political and religious spectrum, our students used
the depth of their learning to engage their own paths to pathlessness.
Both in our classrooms and in the field, central to our mission is learning content for
its own sake and subsequently pushing ourselves to ask the question: Who am I in
relationship to this experience? How do I take ownership of this as a Jewish citizen
of the world?
How does this exist on a daily basis?
In the classroom, our sophomores learn Massechet Brachot, the shakla v’tarya, the
give and take of the Rabbis, around the daily pray experience. They learn the
hermeneutics of a daf of Talmud so they can feel comfortable in it. They learn how to
use the dictionaries Frank and Jastrow – these are their friends! And in turn, during
Tefillot, you’ll see our Sophomores writing in “Tefillah journals” about their personal
relationships to Tefillah.
Another anecdote:
Our basketball team had a Shabbaton in Naperville so they could make it to the
Saturday night game in Mooseheart.
Perhaps you read about us in the paper?
And on Friday night of that Shabbaton, the team sang Shabbat Zmirot for upwards of
two hours. On Friday night, singing into the night, on Saturday night, battling within
3 points of the sectional finals. Talk about being a Jew in 21st century America.
This fusion of head and the heart, of building communities of purpose, stands at the
center of my JTS education for five years.
At JTS, we focused on how details matter in their own right – JTS students love
Hebrew grammar, for example. If you want to talk about the Shva na, I’m your guy! I
love the Hufal construction.
And simultaneously, my education centered on how we must use the details, the
ritual as Chancellor Eisen taught this morning, to craft a narrative for how I live in
this multi-faceted world.
Rabbi Silver
Since CJHS graduated its first class in 2004, we have proudly sent alumni to List
College to continue their dual-curriculum education at Columbia/Barnard and JTS.
And the relationship is pushed to another level this year!
I’m proud to say that our first cohort of CJHS alumni recently were accepted to the
JTS Rabbinical School, where they will further this mission of Torah learning and
facilitating others’ journeys along this path. I look forward to soon-to-be rabbis Josh
Warshawsky and Elli Cohn returning to be the Friday darshanim during our
morning tefillot.
The relationship between CJHS and JTS is as natural as it is essential.
As I speak to my teachers both from my time in Chicago and my years at JTS, I offer
us both the challenge and a b’racha: May we use Rosenzweig’s model of walking the
path of Torah, of delving into the proverbial trenches.
And in doing so, may we help facilitate the path of Torah learning toward
transcendent meaning, where students of all kinds form a relationship with our
sacred texts that leads toward a life of meaning mitzvot.