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August 8, 2003/Av 10 5763, Vol. 55, No. 50
Walking with the rabbunum
VICKI CABOT
Contributing Editor
We are walking through the underground tunnels below the Western Wall.
The recently excavated passageways wind northward along the edge of the Kotel giving a tangible sense of both the breadth of the Temple and the depth of its tortured history, and ours. The Temple, situated on the mount above, was twice tragically destroyed in Jewish history. Its rebuilding is the quintessential Jewish hope.
Suddenly, our guide stops in her tracks.
"This is where the great rabbis walked!" she declaims. We look down at our running shoes traversing those irregularly shaped stones, feeling sorely inadequate to be following in those footsteps.
And yet, in a sense we have come to Jerusalem to do just that. The opportunity to take a short summer sabbatical and deepen our meager store of Jewish knowledge has led us here. Where else to come to study, if not in the epicenter of Jewish learning?
It was here that the rabbunum, the great rabbis, discussed and disputed, digressed and digested. It was here that they agreed and disagreed, that they argued and concurred, that they both learned and taught. And it is here that the discourse continues today at its loudest and at its fullest, both in the yeshivot and on the streets, the very streets where the sages, and now we, have walked.
The study halls, now as then, offer myriad possibilities for those disposed to participate in the discussion. We chose two, Shalom Hartman Institute for a weeklong group program and Aish HaTorah for another five days of intensive one-on-one study. Both are dedicated to increasing Jewish literacy, Hartman from a traditional perspective imbued with a pluralistic point of view; Aish hewing more closely to fixed tenets of Jewish law but relating them artfully to contemporary conundrums of life. Both engaged us, posing questions to our questions, allowing us a glimpse of the beauty of Jewish thought in its infinite possibilities.
Our learning spills onto the streets, where casual passersby reminds us of Israel's lively mix, from the supremely secular to the sublimely divine. Teenage girls in tight jeans with pierced navels walk by Hasids in strimels and black coats. Youngsters in shorts, sandals and kipot pass by absent-minded yeshiva buchers, male Torah students, with tefillin still affixed to their foreheads.
The sheer diversity is exhilarating, exciting the imagination and propelling the discussion. How to marry modernity with tradition, Halacha with history? Or not?
Just contemplating the exercise is exhausting, attempting to engage in the process, overwhelming. But if there is any hope of our spiritually rebuilding the temple, we must.
"Who is wise?" the sages asked. He who learns from every person, we are taught.
We have much to learn.
Contact the writer at vicki_cabot@jewishaz.com.
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