Tuesdays April 15, 22, 29, 2025
5-7pm Pacific/6-8pm MT/7-9 CT/8-10pm ET
Facilitated by Elior Sterling
*Fairies: Emet Eviatar and Rimon Reches
In the morning prayer service each day there is a blessing for Torah study meant to cover any incidental Torah study that you may do through out the day. Since you must fulfill the mitzvah that you have just blessed after saying the bracha, we then study a piece of Torah right away. In many modern siddurim, the text that comes after the blessing for Torah study is a text with the first words "Eilu d'varim she'ain lehem shiur..." This text comes from Mishnah Peah 1:1 and Masechet Shabbat 127a, and the last line is sometimes used to say that studying Torah is equivalent to all the other mitzvot. Is that really what it says, though? Let's take a closer look.
In this class we will translate the text for ourselves letter by letter in the SVARA method with the help of the Jastrow dictionary. We'll look at the sources and discuss its meaning and application in our lives. Along the way, you may learn a bit of Hebrew, learn a bit about resources for studying Jewish texts, and you will experience the ancient Jewish tradition of studying text in chevruta (with a study partner). The only pre-requisite for this class is that you can recognize the letters of the aleph-bet.
This free class is presented as Elior's practicum at the completion of SVARA's Pedagogy Chaburah program for Jewish educators. As such, the class will be recorded and shared with the instructors of that program and the recordings will be available to all registered students for later viewing.
*In SVARA style learning, teacher's aides are called "fairies". You can reach out to these folks outside of class time for help with technical issues, translation questions, or conversations about the class and the texts we are studying.