Like One Man, with One Heart

One theme that is especially prominent during the forthcoming festival of Shavuos is that of achdus, Jewish unity. 

At Har Sinai, the entire Jewish nation stood together, as Rashi comments, ‘like one man with one heart’. It seems particularly appropriate therefore that the run-up to Shavous represents a date in the PaL calendar when we work closely together with a number of other Jewish institutions and organisations.  Our mutual goal of bringing Jews together from across the spectrum of the community, to learn Torah and strengthen their connection to their Jewish heritage, is a deeply rooted and binding one.

On May 14^th, just 10 short days before Shavuos, I will once again have the privilege of representing PaL at the Tribe ‘Closing the Gap’ dinner in Jerusalem. There, I will offer returning gap year students the opportunity of signing up to PaL on their return to the UK, ensuring that their Jewish journey doesn’t end when the plane lifts off from Ben Gurion airport. During the same trip, I will also visit a variety of different seminaries to sign up new volunteer tutors to the PaL programme. These young women have had the benefit of a rich and long-standing Jewish education, and their enthusiasm for sharing their knowledge with others is one we are extremely grateful for.

Finally, I will also be paying a visit to the Jerusalem office of our sister organisation, the USA-based Partners In Torah, with whom we work very closely as their ‘European branch’.

If you know anyone who is spending the year in Israel and would be interested in meeting with PaL there to find out more about what we do, and registering as either a partner or a tutor, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Wishing you a chag sameach

Judy 

Bring the Community Together!

It was wonderful to meet so many different people from accross the spectrum of the UK's Jewish community at the Jewish Living Expo in March! There were thousands of men, women and children browsing the many stalls and PaL was certainly one of the more high profile exhibitors. Everywhere we turned we could see people using their 'Where will you find your PaL' bags to store literature and sample goodies as they took in  everything on offer! 

Visitors to our stand included the Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and his wife Lady Sacks, as well as Tribe's Chief Executive Rabbi Andrew Shaw and our very own Rabbi Harvey Belovski.

Now as our thoughts turn to Pesach, the holiday that represents the birth of the Jewish nation, it's good to reflect on a day that united the Jewish community with such warmth and enthusiasm. Wishing you all a chag kasher vesameach!

GOAL!!!!!

In his best-selling book “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People”,  author Stephen Covey identifies the setting of goals, and in particular mini-goals, as a key method of achieving successes in life.

When one reaches a goal in Torah Learning – completes a sefer, finishes a parsha or even masters the letters of the aleph beis – the Jewish thing to do is to make a siyum. A siyum (which literally means ‘finishing’) is akin to a graduation – a way of recognising the fulfilment of a significant goal. And of course, one can never really come to the end of one’s Jewish learning (there is always more to learn!) so in essence a siyum represents the marking of a mini-goal – another small step on the long road to achieving our full Jewish potential in life.

PaL is proud to be teaming up with our sister organisation in the USA, Partners in Torah, to celebrate the 12^th Siyum HaShas in August 2012. The Siyum HaShas, which was inaugurated in 1923, represents the completion of the entire Babylonian Talmud, page by page, day by day, in a seven-year cycle. This year’s Siyum HaShas will be a historical event; a world-wide celebration of Jewish learning, and we would like to invite you to be part of it!

All you need to do is choose a siyum-focused topic to learn with your PaL and aim to finish in time for August 2012. We will bring you details of the UK Siyum HaShas in due course – but in the meantime feel free to explore the dedicated website www.mysiyum.com for more information.   

The signposts are already there – so where will you find your PaL?

The term ‘the lost generation’ historically refers to young people who came of age during World War I. Recently though, it’s being increasingly used to describe a generation of people who have ‘lost their way’ – rising unemployment, a financial recession and lack of something meaningful to hold onto has a tendency to set people on a depressing course, wandering through life without marrying, building a family or even purchasing their own homes. In his introduction to our 2011 PaL Profiles booklet (click here) the Chief Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, offers a Jewish solution to similar problems within our own community. He writes: “One of the most effective ways...to ensure the survival of Judaism...is to provide opportunities for Jews, young and old, to...understand their Jewish heritage”.

This provides a very strong argument for why PaL will be heavily represented at the Jewish News and Media Group’s Jewish Living Expo in March, under the strapline of ‘Everything for Everyone Jewish’. An event endorsed by the Chief Rabbi , the Expo promises to provide the UK Jewish community with just such an opportunity to ground itself, as well as being a real celebration of everything Jewish.

PaL has big plans for the Expo, including an incredible prize raffle where you can win an iPhone 4s, Kindle 3G and £100 of Amazon vouchers – the perfect package to get you started on ‘Phoning and Learning’!  We’ll also be bringing along some fun ‘must have’ freebies, publicly launching our first ever promo video -  and of course giving people the opportunity to sign up to what is arguably the most flexible, innovative and – yes - the ‘most free’ Jewish learning programme out there!

 Tickets for the Expo are already on sale – to get a 10% discount on your entry fee, go to www.jewishlivingexpo.com and quote PAL03 at the checkout.  

We’re looking forward to seeing you there – don’t lose your way!

Finding your Jewish Voice

In October last year Jewish think tank the JPR published a 70-page report based on the results of the 2011 National Jewish Student Survey. One of the survey’s many findings was that Jewish students often experience diminishing levels of Jewish practice  while on campus, compared to what they grew up with at home.  An antidote to this, concluded the report, is that “the more you do, the more you do”... in other words, students who join Jewish societies and organisations and engage positively with their Jewish identity are more likely to retain or advance their levels of Jewish practice. Furthermore, the report discovered that many students are unhappy with their perception of the British Jewish community, but feel powerless to change anything – “I really feel that I don’t have much of a voice”, one commented.

Here at PaL, where hundreds of our learning partners  are drawn from the student community, we strongly believe that ‘knowledge is power’.  By enabling Jews (of all ages, student and otherwise!) to delve further into their heritage, we are giving them a voice and the ability to forge their own Jewish path, making informed choices about the lives they wish to lead, rather than just following a well-trodden route because they didn’t even know that other options existed.

Recently, PaL launched a new brand new free resource for Jews of all ages who would like to firmly establish or simply brush up on, the very basics of a Jewish education, before moving on to a more specialised area of Jewish study. The PaL edition of seed’s Foundations programme is available in multi-media format (both email and cd) and covers a wide range of topics in a highly user friendly, practical and informative style.

For more information about this programme, or any of the other resources we are able to provide you with, please don’t hesitate do get in touch!