Rabbi Ilyse Kramer joins the ICJS in September as an Educator. This is a new position that will take ICJS course materials, past and future, and create curricular resources both online and in print. We are delighted that Iylse will be taking up this challenge and welcome her and her family back from a year of study in Israel.

"That is the task before us: to see in what ways those words on the page can come alive, listening to the voice behind the text as it speaks to us, indeed, as it aims to move us toward change."

In most of my teaching, adult education is synonymous with the teaching and study of "texts." There are texts to learn, to decode, to understand, and to question. One could, without a doubt, build a perfectly sound course on Judaism, focusing only on the "doing" (and create a "How to" course, such as making havdalah or even kashering one's kitchen), where the results could be quite powerfully pragmatic and transformative -- that is, at the end of the course, the students could very well know how to do these (as well as other) actions. And yet, as an adult educator, I purposefully aim for a combination of both learning (text study) and doing (actions) -- where, ideally, the learning affects the doing, and vice versa. That is, where for every na’aseh there is always a nishma, and be-cause of this synergy, one's doing of actions is strengthened and changed by one's learning; and, in turn, one's learning is strengthened and changed by one's living and acting. Through the text, then, and the study of texts, adults gain the "tools" they need to be able to approach Jewish life as a living organism -- as something that is part of their own life with which they can grapple, struggle, and use as a way to make more meaning out of their lives.

In her introduction to Adults on a Jewish Learning Journey, author Lisa Grant adds the following poignant story as well as her analysis of the learning needs of adults and the relevancy of text study, in particular, for teaching adults. Grant's passage refers to Jewish adult learners, as that is her field, but I believe the ideas extend to adult learners of all faiths and are the basis of my understanding of interfaith study as well.

In rabbinic literature, a story is told about how Rabbi Yochanan spent eighteen days studying with a renowned teacher, Rabbi Oshaya Beribi, but confessed to having only learned one small detail, about the proper spelling of a certain word. While he learned little from his teacher, Rabbi Yochanan went on to say that he learned "the heart and mind" of each of the other twelve students who studied at Rabbi Oshaya Beribi's table.

This short tale has great relevance for teaching Jewish adults. It tells us that the process and experience of learning for adults goes beyond mastering a certain body of literature. Equally important to the content is creating a safe and welcoming space for learners to learn "the heart and mind" of the other students around the study table. While Rabbi Oshaya Beribi may have been the most learned teacher in his community, ulti-mately he failed to help his students find meaning in the text. His teaching style was too inaccessible for his students to grasp. A message of this story is that knowledge of the subject matter alone is inadequate for teaching adult Jewish learners. Teachers must also know their learners, their needs, their questions, and their motivations for learning. Ultimately, they must be aware that their students are looking for meaning and want to find it in Jewish study.

This story highlights Barry Holtz's complex challenge to the field of adult education: that as adult educators we need to focus on these vital questions and findings if we are to succeed at revitalizing and/or creating new paradigms for adult education within our diverse adult learning communities. To actively engage adults in the way that Holtz challenges all of us to do -- "to see in what ways these words on the page can come alive, listening to the voice behind the text as it speaks to us; indeed, as it aims to move us toward change" (Holtz, "Introduction," "Finding Our Way").

Ilyse Kramer is an accomplished educator ordained by The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1992. She served as Jewish Chaplain at Wesleyan University from 1991-2000. Since moving to Maryland with her family, she has been a Florence Melton Adult Mini-School instructor in Baltimore, and has taught in a variety of Jewish and general adult education set-tings in the greater Baltimore and Washington areas. She is a co-teacher of The Abraham Curriculum, a pilot Melton course on "Tzedakah." Her published curricula include "Tales From the Talmud" (FMAMS, graduate course) and "MAHLOKET: Sacred Arguing in Jewish Tradition" (Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation). She created and teaches "Building Bridges: From Jewish Learning to Living," a course that explores issues of Jewish spiritual development and observance. Presently (2007-2008), she is the recipient of an educational fellowship at the Melton Senior Educators program at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where her focus has been on adult education and curriculum development.