It\u2019s almost the end of the service year, and I haven\u2019t written enough about one of our group\u2019s most important activities: the Sunday meeting, held on the day we return from home to our service placement.\n<\/p>\n
Every Sunday, the Merhavim group meets with our group leaders (two volunteers like us\u2014one an alumnus of the program from last year\u2014and a social worker). First, we share a meal and catch up. Then we have a group activity, such as a short presentation, a testimony\u00a0 or a lecture. Sometimes we have a field trip, but often we participate in a study session led by a moderator from outside the group. Together we read a text and then discuss it in small groups.\n<\/p>\n
This kind of learning is traditional and typical of the Jewish practices of Beit Midrash and Havruta. It is also part of Elul, the umbrella organization of our Service Year. Elul itself is a Beit Midrash that aims to bring together secular Israelis and Orthodox Jews in a spirit of pluralism.\n<\/p>\n
During the last part of the year, we met with a young academic who is also a rabbi, and we discussed various issues related to our service year as they connected to Jewish halacha and oral tradition. Since my main interest in my \u201cregular\u201d life is text analysis, I found these lessons fascinating.\n<\/p>\n
Over the course of four sessions, our teacher addressed four related topics. The first, for example, focused on the passage from Zechariah, \u201cFor who has despised the day of small things?\u201d and its relevance to our attitude to our work in the south. In the final lesson, we discussed the complex and loaded issue of volunteering and how to approach it.\n<\/p>\n
These lessons reminded me how much I miss the close reading of texts, and last Sunday I had an opportunity to experience it again in a different setting. My roommate from the service year and I joined a Beit Midrash Kshatot, organized by the kibbutzim of the Western Negev, for an event devoted to learning about how a community confronts a crisis. (The Hebrew term used in the discussion was\u00a0 \u05e9\u05d1\u05e8 breakage.)\n<\/p>\n
The session was led by the educator and writer Liora Eilon from Kfar Aza, the kibbutz that lost 64 of its members in the October 7 massacre. Liora survived the attack, but her son, Tal, was killed that day while defending the kibbutz. After October 7, she began writing midrashim from the perspective of someone in dialogue with traditional Talmudic texts.\n<\/p>\n
It was a fascinating evening. My friend and I felt at home in the small-group discussions and throughout the event, even though it was our first time participating with this particular group.\n<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t help thinking that reading texts together is a wonderful way to get to know one another. It can also help us deal with crises such as the one Israeli society is facing right now.\n\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tI hold a PhD in English Literature from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, specializing in writing about issues related to women, literature, culture, and society. Having lived in the US for 15 years (between 1979-1994), I bring a diverse perspective to my work.
\n
\nAs a widow, in March 2016, I initiated a support and growth-oriented Facebook group for widows named “Widows Move On.” The group has now grown to over 2000 members, providing a valuable space for mutual support and understanding.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s almost the end of the service year, and I haven\u2019t written enough about one of our group\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,155681,43,155682,224590,142106],"class_list":["post-485212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israel-at-war","tag-news","tag-october-7-anniversary","tag-personal-history","tag-talmud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}