Torah class completes 10-year journey

Arlene Stark doesn’t remember who told her about a Torah study class starting up at Congregation Kol Shofar in Tiburon.

The Mill Valley resident had grown up in Brooklyn, completely unaffiliated, and had become a practicing Buddhist.

“It must have been someone I had a lot of faith in,” she said. “Because I decided to go.” She owes that someone the thank-you of a lifetime.

At that first class, someone read a passage, and then Rabbi Lavey Derby asked, “What do you make of this?”

“It was that — the openness — that hooked me,” said Stark.

She went on to join the synagogue later that year. And on Sunday, Nov. 6 she celebrated with her classmates the fact that they got through the entire Torah — taking 10 years to do it.

Suffice to say this was not a regular Torah study class.

The students did not focus on the parashah for the week. Rather, at each class they picked up where they left off; if they had not finished a discussion about the several lines they had read the week prior, they would continue the same discussion the following week.

“I had no time frame, I went in without any preconceived notions of anything,” said Derby, spiritual leader of Kol Shofar. “I never thought it would last this long. I thought people would get bored and leave. It was an absolute shocker that people kept coming back.”

But come back they did. Over the years, the group ranged in size from 25 to 40. And not everyone was Jewish. At different times, a teacher at a Baptist seminary, several Christians and a Palestinian participated. Some students came in and out. And over the 10-year run, three participants died.

The openness that Stark spoke of extended to everyone, allowing them to express themselves, without judgment.

Jeff Saperstein appreciated hearing how everyone’s own experiences influenced what they had to contribute.

“I deal in business, but for many of us who came as teachers, lawyers or psychologists, they all brought their own professional interests into the discussion,” said the Tiburon resident.

“A poet might look at the Joseph story from a literary standpoint, and, say, look at how this is written, while a psychologist might point out the particular dynamics in the relationship between Sarah and Abraham. We were not like children being led, we could bring our own lives and perspectives into this.”

Ron Berman of Kentfield jokingly added that “because everyone was allowed to interpret it the way they wanted to, that’s probably why it took 10 years to do it.”

Berman described himself as a “federation Jew,” meaning that he has always been much more involved in the organizational side of Judaism than the spiritual.

“The Torah was always a mystery to me,” he said. “It still is, but it has more meaning.”

Saperstein said this kind of Torah study forced him to confront his relationship with God in a way he never had, because “God jumps out at you in every story.”

Whenever Stark came to a passage where God spoke, she felt goose bumps.

“It was not just the words that God speaks, because the words were often very difficult,” she said. “But there was a voice that I got, a voice or presence that came whenever that happened.”

Describing it as “a kind of visitation,” Stark said, “there was a real presence there.”

Saperstein said the class was also wonderful in community-building: “Studying together week after week brings you closer to people. It’s so much different than making small talk with a drink in your hand.”

Derby thought the class was successful because he followed the advice of two Jewish educators who told him that when teaching Jewish texts, one should “present the text, and then get out of the way.”

“I try and step out of the way as much as I can,” he said, “and the learning unfolds like Niagara Falls.”

Next, they are reading the Book of Joshua.

“This is not the end,” said Derby. “I’ve been told that this will continue as long as I have a breath in my body, they will make me come on Thursdays.”