Why secular Israelis are turning to Talmud - The Jewish Chronicle

At first, the idea of a secular yeshivah seems an oxymoron for the yeshivah is one of the defining institutions of contemporary Orthodoxy. But over the past 30 years new kinds of programme have been quietly sprouting in Israel to reunite those from outside the Orthodox world with classical Jewish texts.

Ayala Deckel, who is coming to teach at next month’s Limmud Festival in Birmingham, is at the forefront of this educational movement as a former head of the secular yeshivah at Bina, an Israeli NGO. She is not just a teacher but a bridge-builder too who looks to transcend divisions between “religious” and “non-religious” in Israel.

“I always loved Torah,” she says. She grew up in a national religious family at the more conservative rather than liberal end of the spectrum. When she was a little girl, her father used to take her to siyyums, celebrations at the completion of a tractate of Talmud. “I was fascinated with the beautiful Aramaic language that was like a magical world for me.” But she could also see, looking around her, that it was a world meant for men, not women.

“At school, they split the class when we reached fourth grade [final year of primary]. The boys learned Talmud [Gemara], we as girls learned Mishnah. And when I asked why, the answer was because it was ‘too complicated’ for our minds.”

Undeterred, after she finished school and before the army, she went to a seminary that was prepared to teach girls Talmud; and after national service, she went back to sem to learn more.

“I was on the way to being an Orthodox woman rabbi and then I met my husband. He was secular, I was still religious. We got married and a year after, we switched places. I took off my head covering and he put on his yarmulke. We are still a mixed couple but [in] the opposite [position].”

They and their three children now belong a “mixed community” formed a few years ago which brings together both religious and secular.

While Orthodox no longer, she is in fact a rabbi – a graduate of the pluralistic Hartman Institute that, in its own words, looks to “go beyond denominations and beyond the two-dimensional religious-secular divide that so many Israelis have become accustomed to.” But since the word “rabbi” can have off-putting connotations for some Israelis, she does not use the title in secular circles.

Rabbi Ayala Deckel[Missing Credit]

Still a senior educator at Bina, she also teaches at Hartman and elsewhere including for the IDF. “Before they finish army service, a lot of soldiers have a couple of days to learn, to think how do they go back to day-to-day life.
“We learn together stories from the Talmud about talmidei hachamim who are coming home after a lot of years [of study]. There are different stories about… what to do and what not to do.”

In one story about Rabbi Chanina ben Chanikai, “the Talmud said the road changed and he can’t find the way to his home. That quote we talk about a lot.” When he finally gets home, he cannot recognise his young daughter – an experience that chimes with soldiers who may find changes in their own family on their return.

That kind of session illustrates her own way of teaching, which is to help students find a link between the text and their own lives. “We learn the Talmud in order to understand what is happening to us,” she says. “It is not only an intellectual but an emotional journey.”

It is a style she began to develop when as a student she taught Bible to prisoners. “I understood they were not only talking about the Bible, they were talking about themselves,” she says.

For her, it is not the halachic debates of the Talmud that represent the heart of the Talmud but aggadah, the stories and parables through which the rabbis explored ideas. The medium of story is vital to her – for she is also an author.

“I started to write a talmudic story for my kids in a version an Israeli child can read and understand,” she says.

After that came books for adults. She has written two historical novels, telling “the stories of our history and culture from the perspective of the women in it – usually we do not do that”. A recent book views war through the eyes of a woman who stays at home when her husband goes off to fight, while her latest is about the lechomot, female fighters, whose emergence has marked a “real revolution” in Israel, she says.

As both writer and teacher, she is trying to help shape the culture of her time. “Rabbi Sacks writes about it – each and every one of us needs to write his own chapter, the next chapter of the Jewish story.”

Bina, which was founded 30 years ago, caters for a growing cohort of Israelis who are searching for meaning within Jewish tradition but not necessarily within the confines of established religion. It operates not only Israel but also in places such as India and Thailand where young Israelis travel after the army – like an alternative Chabad House. It has branches in New York and California.

Often what brings people to Bina is wanting to find out how to mark a life cycle event – a wedding or a bar/bat mitzvah – in a way that suits them. Comparing it to home cooking, she says, “We teach them to cook in their own kitchen because they have the ingredients of Jewish life and we teach them to take responsibility for [it].”

She will conduct weddings herself and over the past two years, she often led a Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv when people would join in.

Her Limmud menu will feature a variety of sessions, including one on women as agents of change, when she will talk about a subject probably unfamiliar to most: witches. “I love the witches of the Talmud,” she says.

Limmud Festival runs from December 26 to 31

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