cellio | Open Beit Midrash: small worlds

I arrived in Boston Sunday night around 9:45, after a weather-induced delay. Andrew was kind enough to pick me up at a convenient-to-him T stop and drive me the rest of the way. (It turns out the T station at the bottom of the hill at Hebrew College is closed.) It's a good thing he was with me when it came time to retrieve the dorm keys, as the door with the lock-box (apply combination to box, open, get keys, go to different building and apply keys) was unlit and I couldn't see to enter the combination. (It was luggage-lock-style, not a keypad.) I later found out that a classmate used the illumination from her Blackberry to do this, an approach that hadn't occurred to me.

The program begun Monday morning. (That's this morning as I write this, but I don't know when I'll be able to post.) There are a dozen students, which is just about perfect for a mix of chevruta (partner) study and group discussion. We also have an interesting mix of students, including one Christian who is currently in seminary. (Heh. I had just assumed that this program was open only to Jews, but now that I think about it, they never actually said that. I admit to mixed feelings.)

This morning as we were gathering I had several cases of small-world syndrome:

First, one of the lead faculty members, and later the dean of admissions for the rabbinic school, greeted me by name. That's pretty good given that I last saw them in November, though we did have to submit photos with our applications so that might have helped. Second, one of the students is a rabbinic student here; he just finished his fourth year, which he spent in Israel, so I definitely did not meet him in November. But we recognized each other, so we started stepping through options. The answer? When I was in Israel, we were both at Hebrew Union College for one Shabbat morning service. Given that it was SRO (and they were turning people away), I'm pretty surprised that either of us recognized the other. (Another student in this program is also a rabbinic student, who I also met last year.)

The last one was more surprising: in the late 70s, as a high-school student, I attended a summer program at Carnegie Mellon. One of my classmates wsa in a different program on campus at the same time. This means we bumped into each other in the dorm and cafeteria and for some social gatherings, but never had classes together. She remembered me and where she knew me from; I thought she might have looked vaguely familiar once she brought it up. Am I way too unobservant, or is she just very good? (This sort of thing happens much more to me than by me, so I'm betting on "too unobservant".)

I'll write more about the actual study in other entries, but a brief summary: the overall theme is "Priests, Prophets, and Policy Makers: Paradigms of Communal Leadership in Traditional Jewish Sources" (or "leadership" for short). One track of classes will be looking at a variety of classical sources on this general theme; the other will be looking in detail at the life of Moshe and lessons we can draw from it. A lot of the time is spent in chevruta study; they give us texts and sometimes questions or points to investigate, and we go at it for a while before reconvening for a group discussion. This seems to be working really well, and with luck, by the end of the week, I'll have had almost everyone as a study partner once.

After classes ended, a group of students decided to go into Brookline for dinner and a little shopping. We were just finishing dinner at Ta'am China when my phone rang and mabfan told me to turn around. :-) (Apparently gnomi didn't know if it was me, so mabfan said "well, if she answers her cell phone we'll know". Or maybe I have those attributions backwards.) We all got a good laugh out of it, and they introduced me to another LJ-handled person at their table (whose handle I have now forgotten, alas).

Tomorrow night we have a group outing to Eitz Chayim in Cambridge for a monthly gathering of the Charles River Beit Midrash. (I'm transcribing this from notes, I hope correctly.) I don't know what they're studying, but I don't care -- it sounds like fun, and I came up here to study. (I gather this is a public shindig, in case anyone local cares. It starts at 6:30. I have now told you everything I know.)