By Howard Zelikow (5-27-09)

Today is forty-eight days, which is six weeks and six days of the Omer.

 

It is a tradition to count the days between Passover and Shavuot, as we mark our freedom from slavery and celebrate our freedom to accept Torah. This is called "counting the omer." This year we will observe the tradition of "counting the omer" by sharing stories about the many different ways that we have been turned on to Jewish learning, and through Jewish learning to Torah.

Thank you to everyone who wrote about a memorable moment of Jewish learning. We've collected 49 amazing stories, and we're grateful to all of our contributors. 

Like many others, I grew up in a relatively observant Conservative household and went to Hebrew School three afternoons a week--even after my Bar Mitzvah. I did learn to "read" Hebrew, but very little more. Although I felt deeply Jewish, my life had neither Jewish practice nor involvement from college well into adulthood. 

When our first child reached Sunday School/Hebrew School age in South Orange, New Jersey, we joined a Conservative temple and enrolled her. That's when my real Jewish education began. The adult education classes taught by the Assistant Rabbi were the first occasions that I appreciated the wisdom, profundity, and subtlety contained in the Torah and the intellectual stimulation and satisfaction of Torah study.

When we moved to Great Neck, New York, we had the good fortune to live around the corner from our Rabbi, Mordecai Waxman, who was a renowned scholar, teacher, and head of the Rabbinic Assembly. I got to know him well, attending his regular Saturday afternoon open house and often went to Shabbat services. For several years I attended a small evening discussion group he held, where each year we covered a different topic: Jewish theology, Jews in the middle ages, books of the Apocrypha. I got interested in the Synagogue itself, as I saw how the Rabbi, for all his prestige, had difficulty implementing the new rules to allow women to read the Torah and to be counted in a Minyan. 

I continued my involvement in Judaism and its institutions. In Cleveland I became active in another Conservative synagogue, studied in a group I helped organize with David Ariel (a professor at the Cleveland College of Jewish Studies,) and became active with the Jewish Federation and other Jewish social service organizations. This pattern continued in Los Angeles where my thinking and more important, Rabbi Geller, led me to Temple Emanuel and the Reform movement. Here, too, I have been very active at the Temple, with Federation and several social service agencies, and have continued my Jewish education with our Rabbis and others. 

By Howard Zelikow

These stories are brought to you by the Temple Emanuel RE-IMAGINE project, an 18-month initiative sponsored by Hebrew Union College, devoted to re-thinking and re-structuring our religious school.