Turning it Over: Learning, Teaching, and Reading as Spiritual Practices
Our three-session class will grapple with a fundamental question at the heart of rabbinic education: What does it mean to read as a spiritual practice? We will think deeply about the place of learning Torah—most broadly construed—as key to our continuous processes of moral, religious, and intellectual self-formation. Rather than trying to “cover” a lot of textual ground, we’ll approach the readings as opportunities to “uncover” space for reflection on who we want to be as people and as Jews, and what type of lives we will live. We shall read the texts as spiritual or ethical prompts—not as a normative prescription or specific nudges to do the right thing, but as texts that spark a process of thinking, reflection, and discernment.