Getting ready for Shabbat often involves cleaning the house, buying challah and preparing a meal for friends and family. But in the rush, it may be difficult to take time to prepare mentally for the day of rest.
Five years ago, “Learn Torah With…” pioneered an easier way for time-pressed Jews to put Torah in their lives. The series — distributed weekly via fax, mail and the Internet — is designed to help Jews set aside 20 minutes each week to study.
Editors Joel Lurie Grishaver of Los Angeles and Conservative Rabbi Stuart Kelman of Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley recently published a second compilation of Torah commentaries, “Learn Torah With…5756 Annual.”
Since 1994, the series produced by Torah Aura Productions has evolved along with the Internet, said Kelman. After the High Holy Days, the weekly Torah portion will be accessible on the Web at www.torahaura.com
“Five years ago, our main method of delivery was by fax,” Kelman said. “Over the last five years, there has been an enormous growth of free Torah materials online. We were one of the first to start this trend, and it’s a wonderful find of renewed interest in Torah study.”
The latest volume — the second produced by Torah Aura — is divided into 54 Torah portions, with commentaries by a rabbi or scholar, a synopsis and a 300-word “Rashi of the Week” column. In addition, each chapter contains a d’var aher –an extra commentary submitted online by readers.
Besides stimulating individual study, Kelman said, “the book is also marvelous for short divrei Torahs [commentaries] that can be used anytime Jews get together for a meeting of a meal.”
One of the strengths of the “Learn Torah With…” series, the editors say, is furthering an “ongoing dialogue” among scholars and others “committed to the study of Torah as a primary life value.”
One of those dialogues shows up in the chapter on Parashat Ha’azinu, the section of Deuteronomy in which Moses offers parental wisdom to the children of Israel before learning he will die outside the land of Canaan.
Dr. Jack H. Bloom, a rabbi and clinical psychologist in Fairfield, Conn., reads Ha’azinu — his bar mitzvah portion — every year. He writes that Moses’ punishment was a lesson that Bloom understands more deeply each time he reads the portion:
“Like Moses we’re destined to die without the prize; the prizes we do get are often not worth pursuing.”
By contrast, Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, a professor at Hebrew Union College in New York, focuses on the content of God’s word that Moses passed on to his people. He emphasizes the constant struggle between quantity and quality in language, a problem that bothers his rabbinic students today as much as it bothered Shakespeare in the 16th century:
“Eternal truths are eternal truths; they never diminish in value,” he writes. “We get veneer-deep soundbite information on the news that will scarcely move us to change the world. No quality there, thank you.”
Kelman said that about 40 percent of the newly published commentary did not appear in the first volume, “Learn Torah With…5755 Annual.” In addition, he said “Learn Torah With…” is the only Torah project that carries “the complete range of opinion,” including writers from the Orthodox, Reform, Reconstructionist and New Age movements.
More than 100 rabbis, scholars and authors are in the book, including several from the Bay Area. Among them are Jewish Bulletin Torah Thoughts columnists Rabbis Eliezer Finkelman and Amy Eilberg; Patricia Karlin-Neumann; Daniel Pressman; Janet Marder; Gordon Freeman; Mark Diamond of Oakland’s Temple Beth Abraham, who coordinates the “Ask a Rabbi” forum for AOL’s Jewish Community Online, and Professors Arnold Eisen and Daniel Boyarin.
Other contributors include Rachel Adler, Elliot Dorff, Everett Fox, Tamar Frankiel, Richard Elliott Friedman, Rodger Kamenetz, Harold Kushner, Jack Riemer and Marc Gellman.
“More and more we find that our project of bringing Torah from a variety of perspectives to our readers has created a community in which it is not only permitted, but encouraged to present different and divergent points of view,” the editors write.