Journal of Jewish Education The Midwife: Portrait of a Congregational Rabbi as a Teacher of Adults...

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The Midwife: Portrait of a CongregationalRabbi as a Teacher of AdultsSarah M. TauberPublished online: 07 Mar 2013.

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Journal of Jewish Education, 79:24–48, 2013Copyright © Network for Research in Jewish EducationISSN: 1524-4113 print / 1554-611X onlineDOI: 10.1080/15244113.2013.760124

The Midwife: Portrait of a Congregational Rabbias a Teacher of Adults

SARAH M. TAUBER

Almost no literature in the academic field of Jewish educationexists that studies congregational rabbis as teachers of adults. Thisarticle seeks to contribute to filling the gap in the extant liter-ature base. Using portraiture, the study describes and analyzesthe aims of rabbinic teaching of adults in a synagogue setting.The findings suggest that regularly facilitating learners’ intel-lectual and religious development, democratically guiding theircommunities’ evolution through an emphasis on learning, and col-laboratively joining their congregants in shaping the constructionof personal and communal Jewish narratives are central aims ofcongregational rabbinic teaching of adults.

Congregational rabbis function as important members of the cadre of teach-ers who work with adults in synagogues. In the post-World War Two era,adult Jewish education has been one of the regular activities sponsored byAmerican synagogues. Since the 1990s, researchers and practitioners in thefield of Jewish education have given renewed attention to adult learning inthe American Jewish community. Yet despite an emerging body of scholar-ship in the field of adult Jewish education, almost no literature about thecongregational rabbi as a teacher of adults in liberal synagogues exists, andin particular very little research appears that explores the aims of adult Jewishteaching or learning (Schuster & Grant, 2005, p. 194). This article examinesthe teaching aims of one rabbi, Rabbi Rina Lewin (a pseudonym), with a rep-utation as an excellent teacher of adults in a Reform synagogue. The researchseeks to further our understanding of the purpose of rabbinic teaching ofadults in liberal congregational settings.1

Sarah M. Tauber is Assistant Professor of Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary ofAmerica. E-mail: [email protected]

1This study was part of dissertation research that included two other rabbis in it. The dissertationwas completed in 2010.

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Portrait of a Congregational Rabbi as a Teacher of Adults 25

ADULT JEWISH EDUCATION: PROBLEMATIC TERM?

Discussions about how to define adulthood and about the nature of adulteducation itself—such as whether it is a “practice or a program, a methodol-ogy or an organization, a ‘science’ or a system, a process or a profession” canand do produce confusion about definitions (Smith, 2008, p. 1). The term isoften conflated with the concept of adult learning. In much of the scholarlyliterature on adult Jewish education, the term “adult education” does notappear, but rather seems to have been replaced by the preferred term, adultJewish learning. This may be due to the researchers having chosen to focuson “what the learner does in the teaching-learning transaction, as opposedto what the educator does” (Merriam & Brockett, 1997, p. 6). It may bethat the term “education” evokes an image of compulsory pre-adult Jewishschooling and that the researchers wanted to expand the concept of adultJewish education to extend beyond that association. I believe, however, thatit is misguided to avoid usage of the broader term “adult Jewish education”in favor of only “adult Jewish learning” without providing a rationale forthe reasons. Favoring adult learning as a term may even contribute to thenoticeable dearth of scholarship on teachers and teaching in adult Jewisheducation research. My focus is on the rabbi as teacher, and I have there-fore chosen to use the term adult Jewish education, with adult learning as asubset of that term.

Merriam and Brockett (1997) traced the historical and educational back-ground of the variety of definitions of adult education in the United Statesthat have appeared since the 1930s. They noted that most definitions “includesome referent (a) to the adult status of the students, and (b) to the notionof the activity being purposeful or planned” (p. 7). They also indicated thatdepending on who does the defining, the term can “emphasize the learner,some the planning, and others the process” (p. 7). Merriam and Brockett(1997) offered a definition of adult education that most closely reflects theway that it will be used in this study. They defined adult education as“activities intentionally designed for the purpose of bringing about learn-ing among those whose age, social roles, or self-perception define them asadults” (p. 8). They also noted that the terms “continuing education” and“life-long learning” are often synonyms for adult education.

The notion that adult education is an intentionally purposeful activ-ity is relevant to the context of the congregational rabbi as a teacher ofadults. Although rabbis often describe themselves as teachers, drawing onthe traditional idea of the rabbi as a teacher, not all of the activities of acongregational rabbi are construed in this study as instances of educationalactivity. Rabbi Rina Lewin is aware that her teaching of adults is not identicalwith other rabbinic activities—such as pastoral counseling, preaching, andlife-cycle officiating—even if educational aspects are integrated into theseother behaviors. The settings in which I have investigated Rina’s activity as

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26 Journal of Jewish Education

a teacher are those intentional ones, such as classes and ongoing learninggroups that take place in the synagogue building or in the homes of therabbi and her congregants. While synagogue-sponsored retreats and tripsare another significant venue in which Rina teaches adults, and while herparticipation in these reflects her sensitivity to the critical value of what isoften called informal Jewish education, for personal and budgetary reasons Idid not observe her in those educational venues. They are, however, impor-tant milieus for further research in adult Jewish education and adult Jewishlearning.

The study draws on theories of adult education, and in particular thedomains of adult learning, critical theory, and adult development. Adult edu-cation theorists such as Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986),Brookfield (1986, 1989, 1991), Brookfield and Preskill (2005), Kegan (1982,1994, 2000), Knowles (1980, 1984), Mezirow (1990, 2000), and Rossiter(1999a, 1999b, 2002) have contributed to significant theory construction inthese domains. Scholarship on adult Jewish education represents a secondfield whose empirical literature is incorporated into the study, in particu-lar the work of Aron (1995, 2000), Aron and Schuster (1998), Aron, Lee,and Rossel (1995), Grant (2003, 2008), Grant, Schuster, Woocher, and Cohen(2004), Schuster (2003, 2005), and Schuster and Grant (2003, 2005). Drawingupon the overlapping themes derived from research in adult education andadult Jewish education broadens and deepens the generation of theory inregard to the congregational rabbi as a teacher of adults.

THEORY AND PRACTICE OF TEACHING ADULTS: ARESEARCH GAP

Adult education, both Jewish and general, has not generated a substantialbody of literature on the theory or practice of teaching adults; rather, con-ceptions of teaching appear to be derivative of learning and developmentaltheories instead. Why this is so is not exactly clear. Adult education theo-rists such as Cranton (2002), Daloz (1991, 1999), Galbraith (1991a, 1991b),and Vella (2002) have offered a range of possible ways of conceptualiz-ing teaching adults, but these efforts reflect one of the weaknesses in adulteducation literature, as identified by Imel (1989): the field lacks a “cumu-lative knowledge base” (p. 139). Research tends not to “build on existingtheory” so that “the literature base lacks depth, is repetitive, and lacks awell-developed theoretical basis” (pp. 139–140). My research seeks to helpestablish a foundation for a body of research in adult Jewish education liter-ature that focuses on teaching, and in particular rabbinic teaching of adults.My research also integrates philosophical theories of teaching—such as thoseproposed by Scheffler (1989), Hansen (2001)—and in the field of Jewisheducation, Rosenak (1987).

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Another area that demands further attention by researchers in adulteducation and in adult Jewish education is the domain of adult religiouseducation. Adult religious education as a field of academic research andtheory construction is meager. This paucity may be due to the tendency ofresearchers to focus on particular religious groups rather than on religionas a general category. Defining terms such as faith, religion, religious, spir-itual, and spirituality across the religious spectrum may also pose potentialconceptual difficulties. Cohen and Davidson (2001), in their study of adultJewish learning, divided the content of adult Jewish learning into two groups:Subjects of a “religious nature” such as “Jewish holidays, prayer, Jewish theol-ogy (God), Jewish spirituality, Jewish ritual observance, Hebrew, the Torahor Bible, and the Talmud” and those that they name “cultural, ethnic, orpeople-hood oriented subjects” such as “Jewish history, art, genealogy, foodor cooking, social justice, the Holocaust, Israel, Yiddish, Jewish music, etc.”(p. 21). According to this distinction, Rina engages almost exclusively inteaching religious subjects. Nonetheless, the question of what exactly consti-tutes religious education in a Jewish setting, even in a synagogue, remainsambiguous. According to Grant et al. (2004), although it is true that in tra-ditional Judaism learning is viewed as a “religious activity . . . few Jewishadult educators employ the term ‘religious education’ to characterize whatthey teach” (p. 14). After investigating Christian adult religious education lit-erature and studies in the field of sociology of religion, however, Grant et al.asserted “the quest for increased understanding of religious teachings andthe desire for greater personal meaning in life may be a strong motivatingfactor for adults from across the religious spectrum” (p. 14). In a similar vein,McKenzie (1986) proposed that any theory of adult religious education beconstructed around the notion of “meaning”:

I view meaning specifically as an interpretive structure or framework thatdefines a person’s being-in-the-world and his or her existential stancetoward reality. . . . I view religious education as a process that enables aperson: (1) to acquire meaning, (2) to explore and expand meaning, and(3) to express meaning in a productive manner. The religious educatoris a facilitator who helps people gain meaning, explore and expand themeaning structures they possess, and express their meanings effectively.(pp. 10–11)

McKenzie’s emphasis on meaning-making in adult religious education, aswell as his understanding that such an activity takes place in the contextof a communal setting, resonate strongly with Rina Lewin’s ideas about theaims of teaching adults. Other researchers, such as Vogel (1999), includethe centrality of communal learning as critical to successful adult religiouseducation; my study addresses these two areas in the context of synagogue-based rabbinic adult education.

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PORTRAITURE AS METHODOLOGY

I conducted field-based qualitative research over 15 months betweenNovember 2007 and February 2009, collecting data through three extensiveinterviews with the rabbi, observations of her teaching, email communica-tions with her, and interviews with her adult learners. The methodology ofportraiture in conjunction with grounded theory allowed me to develop threeconceptual frameworks for creating a typology of what constitutes goodrabbinic teaching of adults in three domains: teaching practice, teachingstyle, and teaching aims. This article addresses one aspect of Rina’s practice:her teaching aims.

Data analysis in qualitative research occurs simultaneously with datacollection as well as afterwards. In portraiture, analyzing data is describedas a process of “constructing emerging themes” or figuring out what thedata means, what is commonly referred to in qualitative research as codingthat leads to theory construction (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 193).Portaiture also shares qualities with grounded theory, another approach toqualitative research data analysis. Grounded theory is based on the induc-tive “constant comparative method” (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) in which dataare compared with each other, categories are developed from the data, thecategories are compared with each other, and these comparisons, in turn,generate concepts and eventual theories out of the categories (Charmaz,2006; Merriam, 2009). I used Charmaz’s (2006) grounded theory methods toanalyze the transcripts and field notes. I conducted line-by-line coding of thetranscripts of the interviews and of the field notes using the recommendationby Charmaz (p. 49) to code with gerunds for more accurate descrip-tion. I used focused coding (p. 57) to develop tentative emergent themes(also called categories) for Rina. These focused categories are identifiedbelow:

● Connection● Creativity and Creation● Integration● Sharing and Co-Learing

For each of the above codes I wrote memos in which I explored the impli-cations of the codes, reflected on them, and fleshed out my impressions inlight of the research question, and developed properties for the categoriesthat were “dimensions” of the category (Merriam, 2009, p. 200). I also sharedthe transcripts and their codes with colleagues in order to solicit feedbackabout my logic, methods, or bias, and to establish credibility. I developedconceptual categories (emergent themes) for Rina from the focused codesand memos. These became the basis for the findings and the building blocksfor conceptual frameworks. Regarding data collection and data analysis,

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Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997) aptly describes the portraiture processin a way that resonates for me as “the process of creating a whole often feelslike weaving a tapestry or piecing together a quilt” (p. 12).

The data analysis showed two dominant themes in the domain of teach-ing aims, ones that appear to be supported by the small body of adult Jewisheducational literature:

● Facilitating the growth of intrapersonal connections to Judaism for theindividual learner through the educational process

● Supporting the development of interpersonal connections throughJewish learning with fellow learners and within the larger schema ofcongregational activity

As a teacher of adults, Rabbi Lewin helps adult learners develop theirown interpretations of Judaism; she seeks to foster both intrapersonal andinterpersonal identification with Jewish tradition through the teaching andlearning process within the synagogue community.

This article focuses on one rabbi. In accordance with the philosoph-ical perspective of qualitative research, I do not claim that the results ofmy research are generalizable to all rabbis. Rather, “The portraitist is veryinterested in the single case because she believes that embedded in it thereader will discover resonant universal themes. The more specific, the moresubtle the description, the more likely it is to evoke identification” (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 14). My study is significant because it providesa conceptual framework for examining the aims of the congregational rabbias a teacher of adults. It deepens and extends the extant research base inadult Jewish education, with particular attention to congregational rabbisand teaching. The findings and conclusions provide congregational rabbis,other adult Jewish educators, rabbinical students, and seminary curriculumplanners a theory of the aims of teaching adults that is derived from in-depthresearch with a rabbi who is highly regarded as an excellent teacher of adultsby her rabbinic colleagues, by the laity in the geographic region where sheresides, and even nationally. My research may also help non-Jewish clergyand seminaries who seek to understand the dynamics of adult education intheir religious communities and who wish to better prepare clergy for theirrole as teachers of adults.

TEACHER OF THE COMMUNITY

Rabbin Rina Lewin, the co-rabbi of Temple Agudath Or, a 650-householdlarge congregation in a mid-sized city located outside of a large metropolitanarea, is known nationally as an outstanding rabbinic teacher and religious

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leader in the American Jewish community. Rina first came to my attentionthrough articles in the Jewish press. As I began researching references forlocal rabbis with reputations as excellent teachers of adults, Rina’s namesurfaced immediately and frequently. Although interested in the project, shealso expressed concern about the time commitment. She wanted to meet meface to face before deciding to go forward. During the time I came to knowRina, I saw that her emphasis on personal connections characterized manyof her interactions with her learners.

Before becoming a rabbi in her mid-30s, Rina was a Jewish educator.That earlier career shapes her conception of her aims as a rabbinic teacherof adults:

My work as a rabbi evolved out of my prior work as a Jewish educatorand is a natural outgrowth of that, so that my role as a rabbi is also that ofa teacher, and instead of being limited to religious school, seeing myselfas a teacher of the community . . . I don’t see it as different. I see it asan extension. That the authority of the educator is limited, the circle ofinfluence is limited, so just broadening that circle of influence insteadof just working within a religious school community, working with thecommunity that should be supporting that learning. And so looking back,it’s more of an extension and not all that different. (November 29, 2007)

In describing herself as a teacher of the community, Rina reveals the extentto which she wants education to influence all areas of the life of the con-gregation. The term indicates the central place that teaching and learningassume in her rabbinate. Rina’s understanding of herself as a teacher of thecommunity is not just an ideal towards which strives, though it is that too.Rather, she has succeeded in taking the steps necessary to translating thatvision in to concrete practice for her congregation. Approximately sevenyears ago Rina “re-imagined” her rabbinic responsibilities in collaborationwith the rabbinic colleague with whom she works at Agudath Or and withthe board of trustees. The restructuring of her position, after nearly twodecades as a rabbi in the same congregation, means that she now takesprimary responsibility for formulating the educational “metaquestions,” theterm that she employed to refer to the broad educational concerns facing thecongregation.

In particular, Rina pays a great deal of attention and time to her adultcongregants, offering a broad range of courses that are ongoing from yearto year—including a weekly Torah study on Shabbat morning that coversa range of biblical texts, a bi-weekly adult B’nei Mitzvah class, a bi-weekly“Introduction to Spiritual Questions” class, a once a month early morningwomen’s group “Breakfast and Learn” on topics of interest to women, afour-times a year women’s book group on diverse topics related to Judaismand Jewish life, and multiple adult-education sessions with parents as part of

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the yearly grade-level family education programs conceived and supervisedby Rina. As adult members of the congregation become more fully involvedin a range of Jewish learning experiences, Rina participates as a facilitatorwho helps them develop personal and communal connections that deepentheir links to Jewish living within the context of synagogue life and, often,beyond it as well.

THE CENTRALITY OF CONNECTION

“Connection” is a concept critical to Rina’s aims as a rabbinic teacher. Notonly did she use the term repeatedly in our interviews, but many of hercongregants did as well when they spoke with me about Rina’s teaching.During the course of our interviews, and in several brief email exchangessubsequent to them, Rina drew on two powerful birth metaphors to cap-ture more clearly her idea of connection. In our very first interview, Rinasaid:

I see my job as sort of an umbilical cord that, not myself being theumbilical cord, but connecting people up to the placenta of Jewish life orthe source of life, and my job is to just, you know, connect the cord. . . .(November 29, 2007)

In our final interview she returned to the image of an umbilical cord:

I suppose I feel most like a rabbi when someone, either in my presence orbecause of me, feels more connected, more empowered to the sourcesof Jewish wisdom. Whatever can sustain them Jewishly. And I think Idescribed the umbilical cord feeling, so whenever I can connect someoneup directly with Jewish sources, I feel most like a rabbi. (January 17, 2008)

When I specifically asked Rina to define her goals for teaching adults, sheexplained that they involved “connecting Jews to the source of life, to thepower of God’s presence, to community, to religious ritual, to Jewish textsand the wisdom and stories that they contain” (January 17, 2008). As partof her emphasis on the importance of connections, Rina introduced anothermetaphor in our interviews to describe her teaching: midwifery. Instead ofdrawing upon the umbilical cord image, she spoke at length about howthe vision of herself as a midwife reflects more fully a teaching-learningpartnership between the rabbi and her congregants. As a teacher, she seesherself as a facilitator of learning, helping the congregants discover throughstudy how to “give birth” to their connections to Judaism. While this birthingprocess takes place for each individual learner in its own way, it also assumesa more communal connotation for Rina.

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INTRAPERSONAL CONNECTION

Many Questions, Many Truths

Learning with Rina allows, and in fact may be motivated by, the desireon the part of her adult students to ask difficult questions about Jewishtheology, Jewish spirituality, and Jewish history. She helps them to discoverhow those questions affect their lived lives on a daily basis and shape theways they understand their Jewish selves. Rina’s ability to provoke reflectionamong adults through the questions she raises encourages the learners toview Judaism as a sophisticated and evolving religious system. Throughopen discussion they hear a range of views with the express purpose ofexposing them to multiple perspectives on the same topic. One congregantwho became an adult Bat Mitzvah with Rina, and whose daughter is a rabbi,remarked:

Rina is a teacher’s teacher. She has a great deal of knowledge, but shedoesn’t give you “that’s right” responses. She leaves the learner to deter-mine the rightness or wrongness—autonomy. This can sometimes befrustrating for learners who need to know if his or her interpretation iscorrect, who need affirmation from the teacher. (December 22, 2007)

Rina’s firm belief that religion and religious questions need to be examinedfrom a range of viewpoints is one of the reasons why she encourages herlearners to ask questions that do not have obvious yes or no answers. Sheasks those kinds of questions of her learners regularly, modeling how toexpand their range of thinking. Crucially, her emphasis on questioning islinked to her attitude towards religious truth. According to Rina,

So one can believe there is truth, but no human system can know it.We all have windows into it. Different people know different truths.Different systems know different truths. These are all aspects of a truthwhich is not knowable. That’s how I teach. (December 31, 2007)

Rina employs questioning as an opportunity for more involved discussion;the collective reflection that ensues, in turn, helps the learners figure out theirconnections to Judaism and Jewish life in ways that are nuanced, coherent,and personally fulfilling. The thinking process intends to lead her learnersbeyond the realm of intellectual discovery toward a more integrated view ofhow Judaism can inform how they choose to live. The focus on intrapersonalJewish development as an aim of adult Jewish education is critical to Rina’sperception of herself as a rabbinic teacher of adults.

Furthermore, her approach to learning illuminates Mezirow’s ideasabout one of the core aims of adult learning: transformation. According toMezirow, transformative learning is “the process of learning through critical

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self-reflection, which results in the reformulating of a meaning perspectiveto allow a more inclusive, discriminating, and integrative understanding ofone’s experience. Learning includes acting on these insights” (Mezirow, 2000,p. xvi). Other scholars, notably Kegan (2000), have investigated the natureof personal transformation through adult learning; in Kegan’s research, theincreasing complexity of society demands that adults be able to develop-mentally draw on their cognitive capacities in order to make decisions aboutwhere to place their loyalties when confronted with the often bewilderingand relativistic set of societal possibilities (pp. 68–69). In the adult Jewisheducational context, Grant et al. (2004) used transformational learning the-ory as a conceptual framework for investigating the Melton Mini-School; theyfound that it was critical to the successful experiences of adult learners in thatsetting. Rina’s ability to guide her adults toward this kind of learning reflects,moreover, the internal process she has gone through over the course of herlife in relation to Jewish learning. She consciously brings her own insightsinto her teaching.

Empowerment

Rina frequently used the verb “empower” in our interviews. Chamberlin(2009), in an article on the concept of empowerment in a counseling set-ting, indicated that the widespread use of the term made it “difficult to claimthat ‘empowerment’ is a meaningful concept” (para. 1). Her research identi-fied 15 qualities that apply toward developing a working definition, including“having decision-making power, seeing things differently, effecting change inone’s life and one’s community” (para 2). She concluded with the assertionthat “empowerment was a complex, multidimensional concept. . .” (para. 3).Significantly, in light of the results of my research, she noted, “Empowermentdoes not occur to the individual alone, but has to do with experiencing asense of connectedness with other people” (para. 11).

Several of Chamberlin’s (2009) observations share commonalities withRina’s ideas about empowerment. In fact, Rina frequently used this wordwhen discussing her aims as a rabbinic teacher of adults. For Rina,empowerment means that the adults she teaches will learn how to forgeconnections between Jewish tradition, Jewish wisdom, Jewish texts, Jewishrituals, and their lives. These connections will nurture and sustain them asJewish human beings.

Empowerment incorporates a critical intrapersonal dimension. As anhoped for outcome of her teaching, Rina strives to nurture a sense that Jewishlearning means much more than the acquisition of knowledge for intellectualpurposes alone. Rather, it ideally ought to lead to a shift in the learners’ senseof their capabilities as Jews who choose to become more purposeful aboutthe way they live as Jews. Brookfield (1986) included empowerment as one

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of the six primary “principles of effective practice” of adult facilitation oflearning. He wrote:

The aim of facilitation is the nurturing of self-directed, empoweredadults. Such adults will see themselves as proactive, initiating individ-uals engaged in a continuous recreation of their personal relationships,work worlds, and social circumstances rather than as reactive individuals,buffeted by uncontrollable forces of circumstance. (p. 11)

In Jewish education, Aron (1995) used the concept of empowerment todescribe the goals of congregational learning. Although in the article shedid not fully clarify what she intends by empowerment, Aron contrastedthe customary focus on “transmission of subject matter” with a processof empowering Jewish adults to determine the direction of their learning.In subsequent writing (Aron, 2000), she fleshed out the concept, charac-terizing it as a collaborative endeavor between the laity and the religiousand educational leadership within a congregation, behaviors that Rina’s ownpractice strongly supports.

Implicit Jewish Education

In her approach to teaching adults, Rina’s concern with intrapersonal con-nection links her practice to the ideas of Jewish educational philosopherMichael Rosenak. In Commandments and Concerns, Rosenak (1987) pre-sented two contrasting modes of Judaism and Jewish education: explicitand implicit. The latter emphasizes openness, authenticity, and ultimacy;questions are valued; the search for personal meaning is primary even asfellowship remains central to the religious enterprise (pp. 112–119). Thesethemes resonate decisively in Rina’s interaction with her learners. Rina spokeabout the formative influence on her of this kind of an approach in one herrabbinic mentors, and how he had shaped her perspective on Jewish learn-ing. Her prior career as a Jewish educator allowed her to apprentice witha rabbi who helped her further refine her vision of Jewish community andJewish education:

RL: I think I would not have become a rabbi had it not been for LeonardSchorr.

ST: Why not?

RL: His model was one also that psyche and heart and spirit and intel-lect were all part of being fully engaged as a Jew. He didn’t checkanything at the door. And the way he sought to make connectionbetween things was thrilling to me. . . . And it’s the community that Ihave also sought to create. . . . That there’s no question you can’t askas long as you ask it from a place which is genuine and respectful.

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There is no question you can’t ask, and that one’s emotions andpsyche are to be part of the experience and not left some place else.(January 17, 2008)

As these comments suggest, Rina seeks to integrate the ideas embeddedin implicit education, concepts that emphasize the intrapersonal dimen-sion along with the construction of deep bonds of community groundedin learning. It is to this topic that we will now turn.

INTERPERSONAL CONNECTIONS

Connection extends beyond the intrapersonal in Rina’s teaching. The inter-personal focus of Rina’s aims is another dominant dimension of her teachingrabbinate. It reveals itself in nearly all of the settings within which sheteaches. Rina teaches content to her learners, but a primary aspect ofthat teaching includes educating them into a process of active involve-ment in Jewish communal life through serious and ongoing Jewish learning.According to one of her adult learners who has been a long-time attendee ather Shabbat morning study group:

If not for Rina I would not have joined this congregation. She can meetpeople at whatever level they are. She pulls you along. She encouragesyou. She constantly reminds us, “There are no stupid questions.” She’screated a learning community here and in the other learning settings likethe retreats she sponsors and the travel she does with the congregants.She’s passionate about learning and teaching. She nurtures us intellectu-ally and religiously in a safe way. And in an intergenerational way. It’sokay to admit what you don’t know. . . . Because of her I never want tostop learning. (September 27, 2008)

Wertheimer (2005), in his overview of synagogue transformation, referred tothe idea of community as a central theme in contemporary American churchand synagogue life. In comparing research on churches and synagogues, hewrote, “. . . What is noteworthy is the extent to which building communityis a central preoccupation of churches, and is now driving synagogue trans-formation as well” (p. 79). Furthermore, Grant (2003), in her analysis of thelong-term influence of the adult Bat Mitzvah class on a group of women sheinterviewed in a longitudinal study, concluded,

Consistent with their own goals, the most significant and clearest impactfor everyone was a deepening sense of connection to their synagoguecommunity. . . . Each of the women also noted the powerful groupbonding that took place during the two years of study. (p. 38)

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In addition, Flexner (1995), Grant et al. (2004), and Woocher (2003) all con-cur regarding the pivotal function of adult learning in motivating, generating,and maintaining community.

Yet the very term “community” is problematic. In both general andJewish contexts it is often used to refer to a variety of different concepts.Smith (2001), has identified four meanings of the term:

● a “value” that incorporates “solidarity, commitment, mutuality and trust”;● a “descriptive category or set of variables”—including a place, an interest,

or as communion;● a symbolic construct;● a network and/or local social system.

For Rina, the notion of interpersonal connection is most closely tied to thefirst two meanings. Communal connection entails creating bonds betweenJewish patterns of living among fellow congregants through learning, ties thatin turn lead to other synagogue experiences that help to cultivate relation-ships and attachments in a Jewish framework. The regular learning groupsRina teaches are settings in which the rabbi and the congregants share theirexperiences and ideas with each other; the opportunity to know and appre-ciate the learners as individuals and to create cohesion in the group wasfrequently remarked upon by the learners as part of the richness of theirexperience with Rina, and they identified it as a key reason for continu-ing to return to study. Rina’s courses are inviting, democratic settings whererespectful interaction is supported and promoted by her. Because of theemphasis on discussion, the concerns, questions, values, disagreements, andexperiences of the participants are shared. Along the way, the individualpersonalities of the rabbi and the learners emerge. Issues that continue topreoccupy the group as a whole are explored in depth. Reflection grows outof the sustained learning, as the following description from my observationfield notes records:

I arrive at a congregant’s home in the evening, mid-week, where the firstof the four sessions of the synagogue’s women’s book group will be held.They will be discussing Rachel Reimen’s My Grandfather’s Blessings.I learn that two of the sessions will be at private homes and two in thesynagogue. Located in an upper middle class neighborhood about tenminutes from the synagogue, the house suggests an understated afflu-ence. An older woman arrives at about the same time as I do. We aregreeted by Amy, the host, and invited to the finished basement wheresofas and chairs have been arranged in a large circle. Food and drink,including wine, have been prepared on tables. As the women begin todrift in, many greet each other as old friends, while others introducethemselves to one another for the first time. The ages range from the 30sto the 70s, with the majority in the mid-40s and 50s.

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Amy announces that Rina is running late from a meeting at thesynagogue. While waiting, the women talk, eat, and drink. A lively atmo-sphere puts everyone at ease. When Rina arrives, we sit down in a circle.The host formally welcomes everybody. Nearly everyone attending is amember of the congregation. Amy shares the history of the selectionof the book, and asks that a list with everyone’s email address be sentaround so that everyone will be updated on upcoming sessions. Rina,sitting as one of the group in the circle, introduces the beginning ofthe new cycle with a reminder that people ask each other’s names asoften as needed. Everyone then says her name to the group. Rina refersto the rabbinic study group that she participates in, explaining that shegave the four men she studies with this book to read, mentioning howthey found it opened up new insights for them. She hopes it will dothe same for the group. She proceeds to give some indication of howto structure the learning, saying, “It’s all about what moves you, strikesyou as meaningful or helpful. It is not literary analysis.” She begins byreading the introduction, pausing to interpret some of the text, saying,“Blessing is about meeting, about wholeness. It is not about higher tolower, but about the between.” She encourages the participants to speakfreely and to jump in spontaneously. “Interrupting is what this is about sodon’t apologize,” she adds when one woman seems to cut off someone.Rina listens to their remarks, interjecting a comment or an observation atcareful moments.

At one point she has the learners skip ahead to a later section that dealswith sexuality and sex. After reading the passage, Rina says, “I love thatstory,” and many in the group laugh. Further on she directs them toan excerpt about a woman who had breast cancer, and how the illnessaffected her love relationships. Many of the participants jump in, respond-ing to the reading and to Rina’s remarks. One of the learners seems tohave more to say than the others, but Rina does not try to stop her. Thegroup seems to regulate itself with regard to participation. Only on oneoccasion does Rina ask explicitly for feedback. Although it is not exactlyclear what, if any, is the larger purpose of studying the book, other thanthe fact that several of the participants were intrigued by it, the womenare fully engaged. While some humor and laughter is part of the discus-sion, the topics are serious and the tone reflects that earnestness. Thewomen are exploring the deeply personal matters raised by the book.Rina will accompany them on that exploration. (October 15, 2008)

This session illustrates the emphasis on facilitating—or “midwifery”—thatRina sees as essential to her teaching method and teaching style. Rather thanbecoming the symbolic exemplar for her adult learners, embodying a certainideal Jew or human being, Rina sits in the circle with them. Her willingnessto openly discuss personal matters such as family relations, sexuality, andillness in the context of text study may be what some of the women learn-ers meant when they talked about Rina’s ability to “connect to congregants

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outside of a purely religious context.” As one of the learners in the bookgroup remarked, “Rina draws people out through weaving her scholarlyknowledge, her stories of the tradition and her own personal life, freeingpeople to do that also” (October 12, 2008).

Even for the groups that meet less frequently, such as the adults-onlypart of the family education series that Rina teaches, the rabbi’s approachencourages interpersonal connections. In addition, through the socializingbreaks before and after learning, especially when food and beverages arepresent, attendees, including the rabbi, converse informally with each other,as demonstrated by my field notes from one of her regular classes:

I arrive at Rina’s house just as a few of the learners are arriving forher adult Bar and Bat Mitzvah class. It is the third night of Hanukkah.We knock on the front door. Rina’s husband answers. He is dressed insweat pants and a t-shirt. He chats with several of the women beforedisappearing to the basement for a workout. He has prepared a fire.There are cookies in the shape of dreidels placed on the table in theliving room. After a relaxed period of snacking on cookies, drinkingtea, and talking Rina invites all of us to gather around the piano wherethere are several different menorahs placed. We sing the blessings, lightthe candles, and proceed to the sofas and chairs. About fifteen peopleattend, including two men.

This is the second of two sessions about Shabbat. She turns to AnitaDiamant’s Living a Jewish Life, the text that the group uses. She refers toit as an “entryway place for conversation.” This is the second of two ses-sions on Shabbat. The learners begin by sharing their memories, mostlypositive, of Friday night meals. One of the men, in his mid-40s asks ifanyone “does Shabbat regularly.” He confesses that he does not. He findsthat something always “pops up.” He has three young kids; the family isall over the place. Where is there time? His friends don’t do it either, eventhough most of them are Jewish. Rina listens to him. She acknowledgeshis situation and says, “It is bucking the entire culture to do it. We don’thave to be at the beck and call of everybody else. It takes a lot of familystrength. Having friends support you makes it a lot easier. It’s not ona scale of 0 to100. There are different ways to do Shabbat.” She sharesthat as a rabbi she also works on Friday nights. She speaks from herown experience of juggling work and family commitments on Shabbat.“There isn’t a formula that works for every family.” She also suggests thatAgudath Or itself can be like a home, a place they can come for Shabbateven if they do not usually celebrate it at home.

After the learners exchange more stories about Shabbat with each other,Rina closes the discussion with a question for them to ponder over thenext two weeks: “How do we as Reform Jews create a community ofcelebrants when we are all making our individual choices?” (December6, 2007)

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Rina’s invitation to participate in Shabbat at the synagogue during thissession is part of a broader vision she values about building communitythrough participation in ritual. Agudath Or was among the diverse group ofsynagogues to embrace Synaplex, an initiative created by STAR (Synagogue:Transformation and Renewal).2 According to the synagogue’s website,“Synaplex is an innovative monthly Friday night program that exploresthe Jewish experience. Its cultural, educational, spiritual, and social eventsare opportunities to learn, gather, pray, and enjoy Shabbat.” The SynaplexShabbat at Agudath Or stands out as a part of Rina’s efforts to build a congre-gation where the celebration of ritual both initiates and bolsters interpersonalbonds. The Friday night evenings attract an intergenerational mix of membersand are among the most highly attended events during the year.

The Annual Retreat—“Agudath Or at its Best”

Approximately twenty years ago Rina initiated a retreat, hoping to create thecommunal experiences of camp that she valued so greatly as an adolescent.Out of her efforts came what she calls the Annual Retreat. In our interviews,she stressed the symbolic and real value of the retreat in braiding togetherlearning and community:

I think it is Agudath Or at its best . . . and it started out as an extensionactually of adult learning, and maybe fifty adults went away for an intensescholar-in-residence type of experience, but everyone was in residenceas opposed to just the scholars—creating a Shabbat, a lived Shabbat, livedintense experience of Shabbat, of adult learning, and I did it with a mem-ber of the congregation who since became a rabbi. And over the yearsit really has been handed over to the lay leadership and expanded intowhat was initially an adult experience into what is a family and largercommunity experience. So now close to two hundred people go away,and for all of Memorial Day weekend we create a village. It is intergen-erational, multigenerational. . . . It’s members of the community teachingother members of the community, and in that setting people are giversand receivers, and no one is, you know, Great Giver of Information. . . .I teach, and other members of the staff teach and so do many membersof the community, and it’s extraordinarily egalitarian in that way. . . . It isAdudath Or at its best. . . . (November 29, 2007)

The Annual Retreat exemplifies Rina’s efforts to nurture communal lifethrough serious learning. The retreat also acts on a symbolic level: it func-tions as an emblem of how Rina works on a more daily basis in theyear-round teaching she does with the adults.

2A Jewish advocacy organization to help synagogues, founded in 2000. For further infor-mation, consult their website (http://www.jesna.org/sosland/resources/complementary-education/star-synagogue-transformation-and-renewal).

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Narrative Teaching and Learning

Rina aspires to create interpersonal connections at Agudath Or through shar-ing and listening to stories as part of her teaching practice. The narrativesgenerally fall into three categories:

● narratives from the Jewish textual tradition—ranging from biblical,rabbinic, and later Jewish sources—that are either the focus of study orlinked thematically to it by the rabbis;

● narratives that have no apparent link with Judaism but that relate to thetopic of study—such as Shabbat, ritual, life-cycle, God, or suffering;

● personal narratives (both the learners’ and the rabbi’s) with Jewish orgeneral themes that are linked to a particular topic. This kind of teach-ing encourages the learners to ask questions about existential, intellectual,spiritual, and religious concerns and their relation to Judaism and to theJewish people through the lens of narrative.

The use of narratives cultivates bonds among the learners in various ways; inturn, these links radiate out into participation in the wider Agudath Or orbit:many of her adult learners assume positions of leadership in the congrega-tion. Schuster (2003) argued that narrative teaching and learning contributesto Jewish identity construction on a personal level, but in the context ofRina’s teaching, Schuster’s insights extend into the various ways that suchan approach also facilitates communal identity construction in local andglobal ways. Jonathan Woocher (1995) identified “story-telling” as part of“personal meaning making in a Jewish key” that is fundamental to creatingand generating attachments to Jewish community. He wrote:

The Jewish community must, in effect, become one in which the largernumber of stories—traditional, historical, and personal—are exchanged.We hope that gradually the configurations of shared stories (and sharedmeanings) will emerge and out of these stories, which are likely to con-tain many traditional elements, mutual commitments to live in accordancewith the stories will likely emerge as well. (p. 27)

Rina’s focus on stories enables her adult learners to link individual narrativesto broader Jewish communal, traditional, and historical narratives, so that theadults can discover a relationship between their lives and Jewish stories pastand present. For example, one of her regular learners approached me after aclass and began by telling me that Rina was a fantastic storyteller. He startedto cry, confiding that she was one of the seven most important people whohad influenced his life:

Rina helped me to understand who I was as a Jew. I had no previousJewish education. Part of this was increasing my involvement in the

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community. She is not an “on high” rabbi. She invited me to her home.I saw her kids . . . I went on two trips to Israel with her. We met unbe-lievable people and hear unbelievable stories. I’ll never forget how sheinvited us to her parents’ home in Jerusalem and she had invited an ArabChristian woman who described her fear of Israeli soldiers. Or whenwe went to Prague before going to Israel and she introduced us to twoyoung Jews who hadn’t been told by their parents they were Jewish untilthey beaten up some Jews and went home and told their parents, andnow they were trying to discover their roots. Rina brought them booksfor studying. Only Rina would have thought to expose us to these kindsof people’s stories. That is why I keep coming here on Shabbat to study.(December 22, 2008)

The learner explained that Rina’s use of stories had forced him to ask hardquestions about history, ethics, and loyalty to Judaism and the Jewish people.They provoked him to investigate his own commitments. In the process ofdeveloping answers to these questions, the learning helped him to placehis life in the context of the larger narrative of the Jewish people, past andpresent, in his own congregation and beyond it.

Narrative Development Joins Interpersonal and Intrapersonal

Since the 1990s, research in adult learning has called attention to the valueand power of narrative development in giving coherence to and shapingmeaning in an adult’s life (Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007). Dueto the importance of experience in adult learning, narrative developmenthas become a fertile area for investigation. Of significant note in this regardis the value of integrating personal narratives into the educational expe-rience. Schuster (2003) cited the desire for coherence and purpose in aperson’s life as a prime reason for participation in adult Jewish learning;she included the sharing of personal stories by the teachers and the learn-ers as part of that learning process. Grant et al. (2004) discovered in theirresearch on the Melton-Mini-School program corroboration of the sociologistRobert Wuthnow’s claim about the value of sharing stories. They wrote ofWuthnow’s observations in the context of adult Jewish learning as follows:“[T]he act of sharing stories is key to the development of community withina group, as members offer up details of their personal histories as textsfor examination and response” (p. 134). According to the adult educationaland adult developmental literature, adults draw on their life experience intheir learning, and they also seek to make sense of this experience throughlearning.

In Rina’s classes, the vast majority of which are structured to be intimateand to encourage face to face respectful discussion, Rina shares her ownexperiences, finds ways to make links to the learning, and models a waythat the learners can do so as well. Her process shares substantial overlap

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with Randall’s (1996) theory of “restorying” as crucial to adult education.Randall’s four-step process, describes a teacher who:

● Provides a secure environment in which learners share● Listens attentively● Poses questions that help the learners see what kinds of stories they are

telling and the beliefs that undergird the stories● Participates with the learners as a “co-author” as teacher and learner con-

sider how to shape these self-narratives in ways that incorporate their newknowledge into their lives

Although she was not aware of Randall’s ideas, Rina’s teaching practiceclosely corresponded to Randall’s concept of restorying. By integrating nar-rative into the educational process, Rina brings together the intrapersonaland interpersonal aspects of her teaching aims.

FACILITATING CONNECTIONS FOR ADULT LEARNERS

As a teacher of adults, Rina aims to help her learners integrate Judaisminto their lives through a process of ongoing study in a community wherepersonal insights and vital relationships grow out of and bolster the learn-ing. Transmission of content clearly serves a purpose beyond accumulatingJewish content knowledge. Learning fosters attachment to Agudath Or, toJewish tradition, and, not insignificantly, to Rina as the rabbi who accompa-nies the learners as they evolve in their Jewish commitments. Jewish studysupports the development of individuals for whom thinking, feeling, anddoing in a Jewish context forms a coherent and cohesive whole. This iswhat Rina and her learners mean when they speak about connections. Rinarepeatedly stressed in our interviews that she neither wants to be, nor sees,herself, as the “Great Giver of Information.” Rather, as she succinctly putit in one of her emails to me, her most essential function as a teacher ofadults is that of facilitator of learning, or as she prefers to say, midwife, toher community (personal communication, October 24, 2008). This approacheven characterizes moments when she functions as a rabbi in a much largersetting.

For example, as part of her opening address to the parents of the reli-gious school at the annual religious school open house in September of 2008,Rina provided a short profile of her own family, including personal detailsabout her grandparents. She divulged several of her own child-rearing errors.She proceeded to explain why she chose to share these private anecdotes.To the audience of 200 adults, most who did not know her personally, shesaid, “I don’t have a perfect family. I don’t want you to idealize my family.

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I don’t believe there are any formulas for successful parenting. But we canuse Jewish life to nurture us and our children.” She appears as an adult whostruggles as they do to make sense of her decisions and experiences as aparent, drawing upon Judaism as a guide, and eager to facilitate connectionswith them about matters of importance to all of their lives. After her intro-duction she showed the group a documentary called Who are the Debolts?about a couple who adopted a dozen severely handicapped children. Thefilm explores the following question: “What makes a person whole?” Whenit was finished, Rina opened the floor for parent feedback. A flood of highlypersonal stories from the audience ensued. Subsequently, Rina continuedher address by speaking once again from her own experiences as a parent,mentioning the ways that Jewish traditions had supported her own children’sdevelopment and the closeness of their family. Even in a large setting suchas the open house, Rina as storyteller strives to bridge the distance that existsbetween a rabbi and her congregants, and, just as importantly, among thereligious school parents.

The highly personalized and vibrant teacher-learner and learner-learnerexchanges evident in Rina’s teaching offer a miniature model of the kindof community she wishes to create for Agudath Or as a whole. To avery great degree she has achieved what her own rabbinic mentor wroteabout when he urged his colleagues from all denominations to transformtheir synagogues into close communities where teaching and learning pro-mote personal growth and build communal attachments. Over the past twodecades, Rabbi Rina Lewin’s activity as a teacher of adults demonstrates thepossibility of fulfilling such an aim.

CONCLUSIONS

Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Connections Aims of RabbinicTeaching of Adults

The twin aims of intrapersonal and interpersonal connections lead Rina’sadult learners to discover how they want to situate themselves in the long,complex, and rich Jewish past and present both individually and commu-nally. They become both authors and actors in a several thousands year oldJewish drama. Cognitive and affective outcomes result from this process.

Process-Oriented Teaching Aims

Developing personal and communal connections through education involvesan ongoing process of creating sacred time, space, and bonds with andamong the learners that in turn leads to further involvement and connection

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in the congregation. In teaching adults, Rina seeks to help the learnersdevelop a sense of the transcendent meaning of belonging to a Jewish com-munity and to being part of Jewish tradition in its various manifestations.Rabbinic teaching of adults turns the synagogue into much more than aphysical space. Rather, fellowship—kehilla in the Hebrew may be the mostappropriate term—is cultivated; connections between learners’ lives and themeta-narratives of Judaism are discovered. In addition, in these safe settings,it becomes possible for the adult learners to locate the points of dissonanceand disconnect that they have experienced in regard to Judaism, and to findnew and constructive ways to address areas where they have experiencedalienation from Jewish life.

The Rabbi’s Position

Rabbis, in particular, because they almost always know their congregants inother contexts beyond learning settings and because they are the religiousleaders of their synagogues, are particularly well situated to be reflectiveabout the collective Jewish narratives that are shared and passed down acrosstime and within their own congregations. Education is an intentional activity;as teachers, rabbis can help their learners in intentional ways understandhow those narratives are or might be interpreted in ways that contributeto fostering communal connections; rabbis also can influence for better orworse the kinds of communal narratives that bolster Jewish community fortheir adult learners.

In her position as a teacher of adults, Rabbi Rina Lewin supportivelyfacilitates her learners’ intellectual, religious, and spiritual development; shedemocratically guides her communities’ evolution, collaboratively joiningwith her congregants in shaping the ongoing construction of personal andcommunal Jewish narratives. As a congregational rabbi who puts educationat the center of her rabbinate, she seeks to foster connections to the syna-gogue community, cultivating bonds and loyalties that extend beyond anyspecific course or particular experience.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

Scholarly research, both theoretical and empirical, on adult Jewish education,on teaching adults, and on rabbinic teaching of adults is still in its earlyphases. This study of the aims of one rabbi in a liberal synagogue seeks tomake a contribution to that emerging field. The findings suggest that furtherresearch in the following areas will add to the developing knowledge base.These areas may be roughly divided into three domains: rabbis as teachers,adults as learners, and the synagogue as an adult learning setting.

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What Are the Aims of Other Congregational Rabbis Who TeachJewish Adults?

As stated in the introduction, this study focused on one rabbi. In order tobroaden our knowledge base, it would be advantageous for researchers touse a variety of research methods to create a basis for further building a solidtheoretical base. These efforts could include additional qualitative studies,mixed methods approaches, or quantitative surveys. Without such efforts, theconclusions drawn from Rabbin Rina Lewin’s rabbinate rest on an isolatedcase, lacking sufficient comparative data.

The Perspectives of Adult Learners Regarding Adult Education in theCongregational Setting

My research focused on the ideas and practices of the congregational rabbi.Although I interviewed the learners as part of the triangulation process,research on the perspectives and the aims of the adults would yield insightsfrom the learners. Because of the emphasis on learning as a way of creat-ing and sustaining communal life, the adult learners can offer further insightabout the relationship between adult learning and Jewish community build-ing. Investigating the motivation for adults to learn in their congregationsmay help educators in determining how to conceptualize and implementadult education. The latter research would include examining the potentialinfluence of adult birth cohorts on adult education.

The Synagogue as a Setting for Adult Jewish Education

Research on the aims of synagogues’ educational philosophies and programswould be useful to gain an integrated institutional perspective about adultJewish education’s purposes. For example, research on the interaction amongthe various educators who teach adults in synagogues is needed. Rina workscarefully with her professional and lay colleagues and her ongoing com-munication with them about the “metaquestions” helped the congregationconceptualize and successfully execute a variety of programs. To what extentdo other rabbis adopt this coordinated approach? Investigating these ques-tions would add to the scholarly understanding of adult Jewish learningas a vital aspect of synagogue life. They would complement the insightsdeveloped in the study of the practice of this one rabbi.

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Journal of Jewish Education The Midwife: Portrait of a Congregational Rabbi as a Teacher of Adults...

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