My Jewish Seminary

Rainer Rilke, in Letters to a Young Poet, wrote to Franz Kappus: "My dear Mr. Kappus, I have had a letter of yours here for a long time. It is the kind one reads again when when one finds it among the others. Verses that you have composed...I shall always read, re-read, and experience as well and as sincerely as I can."

​

Below are the teachers I read and re-read, whose thoughts have affected the "contours of my spiritual signature." (Nehemia Polen)  Although just a few of these folks appear in the menu above, I owe my theological center of gravity to them all.

​

A "hiddush" (חדושׁ)--a new insight into, or novel interpretation of, the Torah--was critical to Rabbi Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezritsh, for whom "the deepest power of sacred learning was found not in the memorization or recitation of canonical texts, but in the generation of new ideas...reading the same texts with a fresh sense of vitality and inspiration. One who approaches the Torah with a contemplative mind will continue to hear the voice of God in the present.

​

"Conceptually, every hiddush becomes a 'makif' (מקיף), an encompassing light that surrounds the person in whom it originated. This radiant aura may even be communicated to others, sparking a chain reaction of joy that begins within the individual human heart and extends forth to other people as the makif is communicated in language." (Ariel Evan Mayse)

​

From my vantage point, each of the teachers below is surrounded, metaphorically, by a makif. My motivation with this website is to be one link in the chain of joy they spark with their hiddushim.