New Classes, part 1

While everyone at home has been enjoying a holiday weekend, I went back to school. Classes started this week! I was going to save this blog to post at the end of the week when I’ve had all my classes, but I’ve written a lot and I don’t want it to get way too long, so I guess I’ll post tonight and again soon, with impressions of the rest of my classes. It’s not like college where you have similar schedules Monday/Wednesday and Tuesday/Thursday. My schedule is different every day. Some of my classes I have once a week, some I have twice, and some I have five or six times a week. (Yes, there are two days when I have Hebrew twice.) Wednesdays I have Israel seminar, and I will let you know exactly what that entails when I find out. My overall impression of classes so far is that my greatest challenge will be Hebrew. Of course, most of my classes are conducted in Hebrew, so this is not a surprise. A rundown of the classes I have had so far follows.

Sunday:
Hebrew (twice on Sundays, for a total of 2:40, and 5 times during the week): I have a new teacher this semester. She’s not nearly as smiley as my ulpan teacher, but I think I’m going to learn a ton of Hebrew this year. I had heard that she was more of a tough love kind of teacher, and I think that’s an accurate description. She spends much less time joking around with people in the class and is very difficult to get off topic. I’m excited to learn a lot from her, and I am hoping she will soften up at least a little, since I will be spending a LOT of time in her class this year.

Liturgy (once a week): It’s hard to tell so far. It’s surprising how little you can tell from an hour and twenty minute class, but the first one is always hard, because nobody has done any reading, so it’s all introductory stuff. The class is all in Hebrew, but we write tests and papers in English, happily. I didn’t have much trouble understanding the teacher, which is also nice. It looks like we’ll be spending a week or two on each prayer/section of the service. I’ll let you know more as I figure out exactly what we’re doing in this class.

Rabbinics Lecture (once a week): Again, it’s hard to tell from the first week. It’s a lecture class, and in English. We will be talking rabbinics, but right now the professor is setting it up for us, so we talked about the Second Temple Period. This class looks like it will be the closest thing I have to a straight-up lecture class this year. I’m not used to taking so many notes! We have break-out classes (precepts/labs/discussion) twice a week with a different professor and in Hebrew, but apparently they’re only related in that they’re both called rabbinics. There will be different readings and everything. I hope that means we’ll learn a lot more, but I’ll keep you posted.

I forgot how much I dislike course packets. I have a zillion already: three for Hebrew, one for each of the other classes, with plenty more to come.

I also ordered a new gorgeous tallit yesterday, which will hopefully come in before Rosh Hashanah, but they don’t promise that. There will of course be a picture when it arrives! I went to the Gabrielli store with Ilana after classes on Sunday and spent a long time trying on different tallitot and deciding what I wanted. I ultimately picked one that they didn’t have there, the design they had in dark blues, but in purples instead. It should be beautiful!

Monday
Reform Liturgy Workshop (once a week, usually): We each have to lead one service during the year, give one D’var Torah, read and translate Torah, and have several other service roles. These sessions usually take place on Monday mornings. This morning was another service led by faculty, followed by discussion of the service.

Hebrew (again): Our Hebrew teacher has declared Mondays (yom sheini) to be radio/newspaper days. So we spend the entire hour and twenty minutes listening to radio news (a tape of it, over and over until we get it) and reading a newspaper article or two. As I have previously mentioned, I’m not such an auditory learner. Listening to the radio in Hebrew is really difficult for me, and it gets incredibly frustrating when we listen to it over and over and I still pick up very little of what’s being said. I left class pretty unhappy today, and I just hope I can get better at this, or there will be a lot of unhappy Mondays ahead.

Biblical Grammar (once a week): I was surprised to enjoy this class today. I really like the professor, he explains things thoroughly and well, and I find his Hebrew quite understandable. Today we learned about when to use which vowels, how to accent words, and various other related things. They all (ok, mostly) apply to modern grammar as well, but I am pretty sure they are more important biblically and that we will be building on today’s lesson. It was also encouraging after a frustrating Hebrew class, because I do pick up grammar concepts faster than some of my classmates, so I felt good at the end of this class.

Break! With the long lunch they give us, and an off period after lunch, I had enough time between classes to have lunch and hang out with friends for a little while, get to the gym and shower, and get back to school and check email and do some things around school before my last class of the day. I like that.

Rabbinic Forum (once a week): This class changes weekly, doing various things related to professional development. This week we had our “reflection groups,” which are groups of 5 or 6 students and two faculty members who meet about 6 times during the year to discuss issues we are facing. I was very excited about my group, as it is all people I like and/or want to get to know better, and all people I am comfortable talking openly in front of, which is great, because I feel like I could get a lot out of this group. We had great conversation today about our expectations and impressions so far…but that’s all I’m allowed to share!

I’m exhausted (and I have a huge stack of flashcards calling my name), and I haven’t had any other classes to summarize! More soon…