Learning for life

Advanced studies class provides adult education

BETH OLSON
Staff Writer

Rabbi William Berk speaks with his Advanced Studies class on a 1998 study trip to Israel.

Photo courtesy of Joan Brodsky

For many, Jewish education ends around the time of b'nai mitzvah. For others, it may extend into high school or even college. However, Temple Chai's Advanced Studies program offers an opportunity for adults to become lifelong Jewish learners, according to the program's founder, Rabbi William C. Berk.

"Good Jewish learning is transformational," says Berk. "I think what people get a sense of (in the Advanced Studies class) is that Jewish learning is unlike other learning in our lives. So much we learn to do in our lives is about getting ahead. ... Jewish learning is so exciting because it's about what's the best way to live."

The Advanced Studies program is a three-year intensive course that requires participants to attend classes twice a month, do extensive reading, maintain a journal, participate in discussion groups, attend a weekend retreat and, at the end, participate in a 10-day study trip to Israel. Half the classes are taught by Berk, the other half by world-renowned scholars and teachers. Berk also enforces stringent homework and attendance guidelines.

Berk started the course more than six years ago, and this fall began his third cycle. He developed the idea from the model of the Wexner Heritage Program. Wexner is a two-year program that takes lay leaders and professional leaders through an intensive Jewish education process, by bringing in the best Jewish teachers in the world, and offering this program free of charge.

"The idea of the Wexner program was to nourish young potential leadership. The analysis was that we're constantly asking for stuff from Jewish people, but we're not nourishing them, we're not giving to them," explains Berk. The program served to "teach them Judaism in a deep way, in a rich way, and also in a way that's multi-dimensional."

The program brought in, as does Berk's, teachers from a variety of backgrounds - Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and secular.

"The theory was that hearing different voices would be very dynamic, as opposed to hearing from one narrow corner of the Jewish world, which most people tend to be subject to," explains Berk.

In addition to witnessing the success of the Wexner program, Berk says he struggled with the lack of continuing education in the Reform movement. While he says he was able to pull Jews at the periphery into a deeper Jewish life, he also found that some would then leave the Reform movement in search of a greater depth of learning.

"What is going on in the Reform movement that we're great at Judaism 101, but we don't get people to 201, 301, 401? Can we create a synagogue where you don't necessarily have to transfer to keep learning and growing?" he says.

So Berk took the model of the Wexner program and adapted it to the needs of his own congregation. The first course offered at Temple Chai started with 55 participants - 35 who graduated. The third class, which began this fall started with 91 participants.

Ellen Friedman participated in the first Advanced Studies course. For her, the program resulted in "a much stronger connection with God, a much deeper spiritual connection all around and a tremendous improvement in overall personal growth," she says.

That learning was "magnified," she says, by study in Israel and participation in the weekend retreat.

Becca Hornstein says she has friends who participated in the first cycle of the class and she anxiously waited for the opportunity to join, which she did during the second cycle. After completing the course last spring, Hornstein says the program changed how she thinks about Judaism.

"I think after three years of the Jewish studies program, what amazed me most was that as a child I learned a lot of details and names and dates and a lot of things that in a child's mind don't come together in the big picture. But by studying this in greater depth, with the maturity of an adult, I now can see the panorama of Judaism," she explains.

Unfortunately, due to the violence in Israel, the second cycle of the course was unable to participate in the study trip to Israel. Despite that, Hornstein says the program changed her life.

"When you make that commitment and you're serious about reading everything he gives you and attending all the classes, listening and hopefully participating, it changes the way you act as a Jewish adult, every hour of every day," Hornstein explains. "There's an overlay of Jewish ethics that now superimposes itself on day-to-day decisions. I don't think I would have had that as a constant presence in my mind and in my heart if I didn't take this class."

Laurie Person began the course this fall and has relished the opportunity to "share the wisdom our rabbis have - especially Rabbi Berk - and the wisdom of our ancestors."

Berk explains that the reason he created a three-year program, rather than the two years Wexner requires, was to create a sense of community.

"Even more than learning, what people want are learning partners. My idea was if people were going to be together from the get go for three years instead of two years, it would actually be appealing because people want community - they want to get connected," Berk explains. "If a particular group of people were to say from the outset, 'We're going to spend three years together and have some remarkable experiences,' that would be compelling."

His theory worked, according to Hornstein.

"To come to a class with eager adult learners, I think is one of the best ways to spend a few hours of the week. It's provocative, thoughtful conversation, and quite often debate. It's the opportunity to get a multitude of viewpoints and opinions and all those things force you to stretch mentally," says Hornstein.

After the three-year commitment to the Advanced Studies program was through, many of Berk's students were not ready to give up their Jewish educational experience, so Berk began Beit Midrash Chai, an extension of the Advanced Studies program for its graduates. Both Friedman and Hornstein are participants in the program.

Overall, Berk is very pleased with the success of his program.

"I've never seen anything in my whole rabbinate that has had the transformational potential as this program. I say to people in the first class, 'For this to be successful, it has to mean that at the end of three years, you are committed to lifelong Jewish learning, you are committed to greater service to your community, and to giving more money to tzedakah and if those three things don't happen, then this was a failure.' It's been working. These are the graduates that I'm producing."

Contact the writer at beth_olson@jewishaz.com.

Home