cellio | Shalom Hartman next year?

This Shabbat I finally got a chance to talk with the congregant who went to the summer program at the Shalom Hartman Institute this year. I had considered going, but it was hard to get useful information about the program in advance, and it was a lot of money to spend on a shot in the dark. (It would have cost 3-4 times what I spent to go to NHC.) My rabbi speaks highly of SHI in general (he's involved in a different program there), but didn't know details of this specific program. So I've been eagerly awaiting a report from the field.

She had a wonderful time, and from her description of the program I think I would too. The group was fairly small (~50 people?) and broken up into groups for study (so it's not all lecture-hall style). It sounds like the groups were fixed, which can be good and bad; she said there were some groups that came there together and they stuck with each other, reducing mingling opportunities for everyone else, but that it didn't get in her way. She has promised to let me look at the class materials she brought back; it sounded like a good, text-heavy program, neither overwhelmingly advanced nor "101" stuff that's too basic for me. She said the days were fairly full, which I consider an advantage.

Last time I posted about this I got a comment from someone at SHI (who, unfortunately, didn't leave contact info). I assume I showed up in web-site referrer logs. Anyway, if you're out there and see this, I'd like to talk with you about information you could put on your web site that would help people who are looking for you. (Psst. Could you indicate dates for next year's program?)

If I have any readers with experience with this program (or SHI in general), I'd love to know about it!

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shi@shi.org.il for more info - or there are email contacts on the pages of the programs in which you may be interested - or send me your questions and I will forward them to the appropriate person. Exact summer dates for 2009 are being set; they are always in the first few weeks of July.

What specifics do you need to know?

Alan Abbey
Website Director
Shalom Hartman Institute
aabbey@shi.org.il

Thanks for the reply and contact info!

This far out I don't need much info -- dates when you have them, but obviously if that's not set yet you can't give them to me. Come spring, when I'll be making the decision, it would help to have more information on the content of the program. This year, it would have made a difference for me if I'd been able to see class topics, a typical day's schedule (how full is the day and what is it filled with?), a sense of how many people would be in classes with me (small groups vs. big lectures, etc), and academic level (too advanced for me? too basic?). This year I started sending email to the published contacts in February and didn't have anything more than the web site by the time I had to decide whether to commit the funds (tuition and plane fare). I couldn't find that sort of information on the web site.

For me, this sort of information is especially important for a program far from home where I won't know anyone. It's hard enough to travel overseas alone; it would be even more difficult if it turned out that, say, formal activities ran for six or seven hours a day and you were expected to do stuff on your own the rest of the time. I'm shy, kind of an introvert, and not fluent in the dominant language; that would challenge me. It wouldn't be insurmountable, but it's the sort of thing I would want to plan for (bring friends or something). I'm not saying that this is what your program is like; from what I heard last Shabbat, I'm pretty sure it's not. But I didn't know that in May. (And I'm not making up the example; a program I attended last year ended up having that kind of schedule. But it was in a US city where I knew people, so it was recoverable.) And I'm certainly not saying that my personal insecurities are in any way your problem; I'm just saying that I have them and feel a perhaps-irrational need to try to assuage them in advance, so that's where it bumps into your web site.

Does that help? I am not trying to be a complainer.

Shalom Hartman next year?

Hartman Institute

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