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July 30, 1999/17 Av 5759, Vol. 51, No.43
Rabbi inspires 'A New Song'
VICKI CABOT
Contributing Editor
Rabbi Ian Pear greets Esther Reiss following a July 20 talk to 20 residents at Chris Ridge Village in Phoenix. Looking on are Rose Kotler and Sara Balis.
Photo by Vicki Cabot
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Ask Rabbi Ian Pear a question, and he'll tell you a story - a Hassidic tale, a Yiddish fable, a rabbinic commentary. Pear draws on the rich repository of Jewish narrative to cogently make a point.
For Pear, life's most pressing questions and most elusive answers can be found in Jewish texts. The quest is what animates him. It is, he says, the opportunity of a lifetime.
Pear's idealism, and his affinity for words and discourse, were apparent early on. As a high-school debater and college stand-up comedian, he developed his natural talents and put them to use for good causes. At Sunnyslope High School, he founded a student lobbyist group and led the model United Nations team. At Georgetown University, he participated in student government, was president of the Jewish Student Association and co-founded the campus Israel Club.
Faced with making a career choice, Pear was conflicted, drawn to both the law and the rabbinate. Both fields would allow him to do satisfying work - work that could make a difference, he says. Each is predicated on words and language, on argument and analysis, which he relishes.
Each profession is steeped in principles of justice and fairness, which moved him. "I wanted to do something to motivate people," he says. "I wanted to be a tool to make the world better."
Pear began studies at the Georgetown School of Law in the fall of 1993, but by the end of first semester submitted his application to the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Following his acceptance, he chose to spend his first year at JTS's West Coast affiliate, the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, to be near his hometown of Phoenix.
It didn't take long for Pear to recognize that he lacked the background for intensive study of Jewish text. "I needed a place to get the skills," he says, explaining his decision to move to Israel and study for a year at Yeshiva Hamivtar in Jerusalem. There, he says, he sharpened his Hebrew and learned to read Aramaic.
Pear admits that by year's end, every word in his Talmud "had an English translation (scribbled) over it," as he learned to discern the subliminal meanings and often oblique arguments in the text.
In addition to immersing himself in the language and text, Pear became absorbed in the yeshiva lifestyle.
When he was a youngster, he and his family - parents Martin and Beverly Pear and siblings Jonathan, Rachel and Sara - belonged to a Reform congregation. After relocating to Phoenix in 1987 when his father was hired as director of the Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center, the family affiliated with Beth El Congregation, a Conservative synagogue, and gradually became more observant. The Pears sent their children to the Ramah summer camps and began keeping a kosher home.
Ian Pear moved toward Orthodoxy while living in Israel. "I was living in the environment and felt comfortable there," he says.
At first, he says, he was intimidated that other Orthodox Jews had been steeped all their lives in a culture he felt he might never fully appreciate. Then he decided to focus instead on what he could do to learn and become more observant.
"The important things are surmountable," he says. "I can study text, I can learn to pray, learn to observe."
Approaching Orthodoxy as an academic and spiritual endeavor, Pear continued his studies at Yeshiva University in New York City, seeking ordination as an Orthodox rabbi. He also re-enrolled in law school at the New York University School of Law.
He received his juris doctorate from NYU in May 1998. Then, together with his new wife, Rachel, a recent Columbia University graduate, he made aliyah (emigrated to Israel). He was ordained by Yeshiva University's Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary in June of 1999.
Ian and Rachel Pear came to know each other, and fall in love, in the summer of 1996. Pear, ever the idealist, had decided to put into practice a lesson he learned in his study of Jewish text. He would embark on a summer road trip of the Western United States in a rented Winnebago, dubbed Chariot of Fire, to visit small, isolated Jewish communities.
Rachel collected books to donate to his Chariot of Fire project, and wound up deciding to accompany the then-rabbinical student on his voyage, together with his sister, Sara, and a fellow student. Pear says the inspiration for their travels was a midrash (biblical commentary) that faulted the religious leadership of a community for not sharing its knowledge and wisdom, leading to a civil war. "The role of the Sanhedrin (religious council) is not just to sit in the capital," relates Pear, "but to travel to every town and teach each community, wherever people might be."
On a shoestring budget of $7,000 garnered from donations, they set up a section of Jewish books in the public library at Grand Canyon Village, taught classes in basic Judaism in Los Alamos, N.M., and visited with elderly Jews in Cheyenne, Wyo. "I'm not sure we inspired them," says Pear of the Cheyenne Jews, "but we validated their identity."
Pear and company, now including 6-month-old daughter Gavriella, plan a foray with the chariot, most likely on the East Coast, in December.
Funding now comes through Shir Hadash, a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation that Pear established last year as a base from which to launch other projects. "Shir Hadash means 'A New Song,' " explains the rabbi. "We hope to create programs and to reach out to those who have been ignored."
An important focus will be the elderly.
Planned for spring 2000 is Yeshiva Hemdat Yamim, a month-long study program for adults age 60 and older. "I want to bring the seniors to Israel to learn intensively, to read text, to write their interpretations." The program will be housed at handicapped-accessible facilities at a moshav (cooperative settlement) just outside Jerusalem.
The $2,500 double-occupancy tuition will include kosher meals and accommodations. The program is open to all, regardless of educational or denominational background, and scholarships will be available.
Pear believes that the entire community benefits when elderly members are given opportunities to study Torah. "They bring a lifetime of wisdom to the text and come up with insights I would never have thought of," he says.
Future goals include establishing a yeshiva for the deaf and blind, and one for the elders of the Ethiopian community, who Pear says have been marginalized in religious life in Israel. He hopes also to initiate a program to certify businesses that adhere to the principles of Jewish business ethics, and he dreams of a Shir Hadash community where he and others can live out their "college idealism."
For now, though, he is busy promoting the Yeshiva Hemdat Yanim, and in August begins a job as the first full-time Hillel director at Tel Aviv University, overseeing Jewish programming on the campus, where 26,000 students attend.
Pear credits his wife, now a doctoral student at Hebrew University, with keeping their life grounded. "She tells me that I can't live on my dreams," he says.
And his daughter, Gavriella, keeps the dreamer in him alive. "I know that anything I start, she'll be there to finish."
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