REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION
Copyright C 2005 Rabbi Jack Riemer
A NEW WAY TO DELIVER JEWISH EDUCATION
THE HIDDEN POETRY OF THE JEWISH PRAYERBOOK
The What, How, and Why of Jewish Liturgy
by Reuven Kimelman
Published by Our Learning Company, Brookline, Massachusetts 2005.
Ten discs, plus study text and charts, $225.
Reviewed by Rabbi Jack Riemer
Rabbi Jack Riemer is the co editor of So That Your Values Live On:
A treasury of Jewish Ethical Wills and the editor of the three
volumes of The World of the High Holy Days, and Jewish Reflections
on Death, a classic resource which assists mourners. He has lectured
at universities, healing centers, synagogues and churches around the
world and has been called "probably the most quoted rabbi in the
country" by tzedakah guru Danny Siegel. In addition, Rabbi Riemer
has also written prayers and poems that have been published in
prayer books of both the Conservative and Reform movements, and
has published articles in most major journals of Jewish thought
throughout America and abroad.
A new term has entered our vocabulary in recent years. It is "multitasking."
It used to be called "doing several things at the same time," and our
parents used to rebuke us for doing it, but now we lead such harried lives
that we feel we are not being productive if we just do one thing at a time.
I, for example, multitask whenever I go to the barbershop. I get a
haircut-that's one thing. I get my nails done at the same time-that's two
things. While the manicurist is doing my right hand, I read-that's three.
While she is doing my left hand, I write--that's four. And since she
complains that I disturb her by turning pages too often, I now read Hebrew,
which takes me a little longer-so that's five.
I am not alone in feeling the need to do more than one thing at a time. Go
into any gym and watch the people exercising-I love exercise, I can watch it
all day-or watch the people jogging by, and you will see that many of them
are wearing headphones so that they can listen while they work out. It only
needed someone smart to make the connection between this practice and the
need for a new way to deliver Jewish education, and now Sergiu Simmel has
done it.
Sergiu Simmel, who is a management consultant in Boston, came up with the
idea of delivering Jewish education in a new way to meet the needs of busy
people. He studied in the Me'ah Program of the Boston Hebrew College and
came in contact with some of the city's best Judaic scholars. He asked these
scholars how many people they reach in a year of teaching, and the answers
that he got were usually less than a few hundred. He decided that these
numbers were unacceptable in today's world of communication. But a scholar
can only teach so many classes in a year, fly to only so many places on the
map, and accept only so many people into his or her classroom.
Publishing lectures in book form was an obvious answer, but there is
something about the power of the spoken word that gets lost on the printed
page. Publishing lectures on video was another possibility, but many people
are too busy nowadays to sit still and watch a screen. And so Mr. Simmel
came up with the idea of an 'audio coursebook'-a combination of CDs combined
with additional learning materials.
It is a good idea, for how many of us have the energy after a day of work to
drive to a classroom? And how many of us can find a babysitter, and leave
our children to go off to a class on a regular basis ? These CDs now make
it possible to study while driving to and from work, though I must warn you
that the points are sometimes so interesting that you may be tempted to pull
off to the side of the road in order to make notes and a traffic cop may not
be understanding if you try to tell him that you were so busy concentrating
on a lecture that you forgot to signal when you turned.
The first volume in this projected series consists of Professor Reuven
Kimelman teaching the Prayerbook. The Prayerbook is the central book of
Jewish life and thought. It is the book that more Jews come in contact with
than any other. And yet, for most of us, the Prayerbook is a closed
book-even in translation. What does it say and how does it say it and why
does it say it? What did it mean to those who composed it and what can it
mean to us today?
Dr. Kimelman's eighteen lectures are accompanies by over sixty pages of text
which include his translation of the Prayerbook text and twenty-what the
publisher calls mind-maps, printed on foldouts.
If you listen to the tapes and follow the maps that go with them, you begin
to understand the architecture of the Prayerbook. You see how Biblical,
Talmudic and Kabbalistic themes are interwoven on each page and how each
prayer is carefully constructed.
And, when you are done listening to these discs, you are not only better
able to understand the workings of the Prayerbook; you are drawn into a
desire to pray them yourself, which is, of course, the ultimate purpose of a
course on prayer.
If this is a sample of the kind of work that Our Learning Company is going
to produce, we look forward to seeing more of its products. They will be a
valuable resource for busy people who want to study while driving or jogging
or doing something else.
# # #
For more information, contact:
Phone: 617-731-3132
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: www.Our-Learning.com
Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author
and are not necessarily endorsed by the AJL
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