Rabbi Rod Glogower's Talmud class at B'nai Moshe.

The Learning Gap

Is the Midrasha meeting the need for adult- Jewish education?

JULIE WIENER
Staff Writer

Until what period in life ought one
study Torah? Until the day of one's
death.
— Maimonides, in the Mishneh Torah
("Laws of Torah Study," 1:10)

111 or nine years, Rabbi Rod

Glogower has been teaching
a Tuesday morning Talmud
class, and Diane Savin has
been taking it the whole time.
Crowded into a B'nai Moshe class-
room, the students — a mix of ages
and denominations — come together
to pore over the texts. Glogower, an
Orthodox rabbi, translates the corn-

mentaries and provides his own inter-
pretations, using everything from
modern-day Israel to Dr. Seuss to
Hegel in order to illustrate his points.
"I can't get through the week with-
out it," says Savin, adding that study-
ing helps her in her day-to-day life
and affirms her Judaism.
Savin and her classmates are part of
a national trend that's taking hold in
Detroit as well: a renewed interest in
adult Jewish education.
Local educators representing a
range of synagogues and organizations
say they're witnessing a surge of inter-
est, particularly in text study and spiri-
tuality.
"People are looking for spiritual
kinds of encounters, meaning-of-life

stuff— who are they, where are they
going ... beyond their cars, jobs and
possessions," said Howard Gelberd,
executive director of the Agency for
Jewish Education (AJE). 'And Judaism
has a lot to say about these things."
But is the AJE's Midrasha Center
for Adult Jewish Learning — and its
primary (under, the Jewish Federation
of Metropolitan Detroit — adequately
quenching the thirst for adult Jewish
learning?
In 1980, the Midrasha was a
degree-granting Institution offering 28
semester-long Judaica courses, some in
partnership with synagogues. But in
the early 1990s, the Midrasha awarded
its last master's degree and lost nation-
al accreditation. This fall, while

Hebrew language course offerings have
remained relatively steady, Midrasha is
offering only four semester-long
Judaic studies courses. Only one
course is offered in the evening.
When the Midrasha dropped Rabbi
Glogower's Tuesday morning class this
year, B'nai Moshe picked it up.
Asserting that most Detroit Jews
are unable to commit to long-term
classes and that it does not want to
duplicate services offered through syn-
agogues, the Midrasha is shifting ener-
gies from semester courses to a series
of one-time outreach lectures at the
West Bloomfield Barnes & Noble
bookstore.
Twelve of these lectures were held
last spring, attracting more than 5,000

10/31
1997

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