Limmud, Lehrhaus and the Lyons Learning Project

I have just completed my last day at Limmud and while the experience was totally different this year, being online, the impact, for me, was exactly the same.

Limmud Festival – five days jam packed with events: lectures, discussions, performances and experiences, by every shape, size, age, hue and gender of Reform, Orthodox, Haredi, Hassidic Liberal Zionist Secular and you-name-it Jew. Each hour of everyday you have a choice of a number of sessions –enough to keep you occupied morning, noon and night. Don’t forget to eat! It used to say on the festival brochure – indeed it is easy to end up skipping meals if you find a cluster of ‘must see’ events happening around meal times.

Every year it is the same. In the days leading up to Limmud, I regret having signed up. I am stressed, over-worked and tired -  and all I really want to do is hibernate through the holiday, watching mindless television and giving my brain a rest. Every year within half a day  I am hooked.  So engrossed and so energised I forget all feelings of weariness.  This is the place to learn, this is the place to try out your own learning on others. This is the place to engage in the most curious encounters with people, and texts and topics you never would in the real world.

By coincidence, I came home to an email enclosing a link to an article in Tablet magazine.  It was by Joshua Krug, entitled: The Frankfurt Lehrhaus of 1920 and why we need it a century later.  Franz Rosenzweig established the Lehrhaus as a way to engage the average largely secular Jew in Judaism. Neither an academic institution  or a yeshivah – it offered excellent and dynamic teaching on a variety of subjects by the best educators around.

‘Here, Jews ignorant of and alienated from Jewish life and tradition, acquired knowledge and understanding of Judaism and explored identity on their own terms.’

‘That’s Limmud’, I thought, and sure enough Limmud was referenced in the article as one of several 21st century institutions inspired by the Lehrhaus.

But then I thought. ‘That’s the Lyons Learning Project.’

We too, will be presenting a wide range of topics with a great diversity of teachers and teaching styles. But more important than the acquiring knowledge, is the experience the individual has in their engagement with the learning.  That experience can be transformative and that is what the Lehrhaus was. That is what Limmud is. That is what the Lyons Learning Project will be….

Happy New Year!

Sybil Sheridan