If a component of highly educated, scholarly readers from the Orthodox community ever felt underserved for fresh, enlightening, sophisticated long-form writing, a relatively new website will be the answer to their dreams.
Lehrhaus, which can be found at TheLehrhaus.com, has sought to raise the bar to a higher level of written analysis for this segment of the Jewish community since its launch last October.
Its mission statement reads: “Lehrhaus is a forum to generate thoughtful and dynamic discourse among individuals within the Orthodox community and beyond who enjoy exploring the depth and diversity of Jewish ideas. It provides rigorous content and encourages vibrant discussion. It harnesses the power of the digital age to reinvigorate and perpetuate the great Jewish conversations of our times.”
The German word lehrhaus (a house of learning) is, according to the site, “a place where scholars and writers can help create and shape communal conversations.” It invites writers to contribute to sections including scholarship, timely thoughts, commentary and culture.
Few if any other sites will offer selections such as “When Elijah’s Mantle Fell: The Judaism of Leonard Cohen,” or “Who Will Defend Maimonides? Rav Soloveitchik on the Mishneh Torah and the Guide,” or “The Patron Saint of Rabbis’ Kids.”
Two of the Lehrhaus team of editors are from Teaneck. Rabbi Shlomo Zuckier, a PhD student in ancient Judaism at Yale, grew up in Teaneck. He is also a co-director of the OU-JLIC at the New Haven campus. He studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion for three and a half years before receiving degrees at Yeshiva College and RIETS.
Professor Sarah Rindner teaches English Literature at Lander College for Women in New York. She has also taught English at Ma’ayanot and SAR high schools and lives in Teaneck with her family.
The editorial team of approximately 10, which also includes Rabbi Dr. Zev Eleff, Rabbi Elli Fischer and Wendy Amsellem, an instructor at Yeshivat Maharat and Drisha, was assembled back in March 2016. Its October launch was painstakingly planned over that time from mission statement to its design and branding. Zuckier said that name and overall goals of Lehrhaus follow the model of German educator and scholar Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) who started a Lehrhaus in Berlin where Jewish teachers of renown lectured on Jewish life and thought.
“He opened up a physical house of learning on a high level,” said Zuckier. “It was for educated adults who wanted to learn about Judaism on a high level. Our goal is to do similar things in a virtual space.
“Lehrhaus offers articles on a wide range of topics, including Halacha, divrei Torah and textual analysis, Jewish history, art, poetry and cultural critique, as well as commentary and shorter pieces on issues both timely and timeless,” he continued. “We hope to appeal to a wide range of interests among our readership.”
As part of its launch process, Lehrhaus editors reached out to writers who might be able to offer fresh and insightful content. In addition, the website invites submission of pitches or articles to [email protected].
Two editors work with each submission before it goes to copyediting. Submissions are typically posted and promoted via social media such as Facebook, and emailed out to subscribers (one can subscribe via the website). The site runs at least one article every Monday and Thursday, and tries to keep its submissions timely. When it launched this past October, several stories were connected to the Yomim Noraim, and there was recently a spate of Chanukah-related articles.
Zuckier said that the editors are looking for a high quality of writing and great, interesting ideas.
“We reject a fair amount of things,” he said. “Sometimes the quality isn’t good enough or the piece isn’t as well developed as it should be. Happily, we’ve been able to maintain a high editorial bar and still run as many articles as we have.”
It’s not the goal of Lehrhaus to take one side or another on what Zuckier described as “hot-button issues.” Rather than taking sides, its writers may at times look into some of these complex issues and help readers navigate thoughtfully. Also, it’s important to remember that, by its own definition, “Torah rests as the center of this project.”
Lehrhaus’s editors want the site to be a place “where scholars and writers can help create and shape communal conversations. Our contributors—comprising a diverse array of writers, teachers and artists—will offer commentary on texts and events, past and present, produce fresh scholarship and explore new vistas in the arts.”
“When we launched, we were hoping for a positive reception,” said Zuckier. “What we were trying was something new. Much of the Jewish material available online tends to be of either the political or “feel-good” variety. We weren’t seeing as much content on Jewish subjects taking a sophisticated or analytic angle, and thought that Lehrhaus could go a long way in filling that gap. It’s been very encouraging to see such excitement from our readers in our first three months.”
Excitement translates into an impressive number of page hits; some 30,000 in its first month after launch.
One early piece, “The Market for Gedolim: A Tale of Supply and Demand,” by Chaim Saiman, had over 10,000 hits in less than two weeks and sparked conversations in various communities in both America and Israel.
Rindner can trace her emails back to last February when she and Zuckier started a conversation about the site. A writer on the site herself, Rindner said Lehrhaus’s success is greater than she expected. “There’s a great mix of more scholarly and more accessible articles,” she said. “People have shown a great deal of interest in writing for the site.”
Rindner added that if there’s a specific demographic to be targeted it is the Modern Orthodox, and she wondered out loud how many potential readers there are for the site.
One of her early Lehrhaus submissions was “Something to Lose: Eviatar Banai and the Sukkot Paradox.” The piece covers the Israeli rock musician Eviatar Banai and his ba’al teshuva journey. She writes of Banai’s song “Pergola” that “the themes of Sukkot emphasize the ultimate meaninglessness of material possessions while simultaneously celebrating physical bounty with great joy. At the center of this paradox lies the ‘feast,’ which appears prominently in the song and of course characterizes the holiday itself. At the climax of his song, Banai imagines a kind of feast, ‘I will bring wine…I will bring bread.’ The sukkah by definition is a site of feasting, as one is traditionally obligated to eat all of one’s holiday meals in the sukkah. A feast, where a meal is both shared and consumed, is a physical experience fundamentally focused on food and aesthetics. Yet, the communal-social element of the feast, and the sanctification of the meal through blessings and other means, suggests that it is ultimately impossible to horde one’s bounty and keep it to oneself forever. While Ecclesiastes advocates for a kind of abnegation of the physical, the Sukkot holiday elevates these physical elements and transforms them into instruments of communal cohesion and spiritual growth. It is possible that Eviatar Banai did not intend to touch on all the complex ritual and theological elements of Sukkot in his catchy song. Nevertheless, ‘Pergola’ may help unpack some of the deeper messages of our most joyous Jewish holiday.”
Rindner’s piece was used as a subject about Sukkot at the Lincoln Square Synagogue. It was also part of a University of California at Berkeley Hillel lecture.
In another intriguing article titled “When Elijah’s Mantle Fell: The Judaism of Leonard Cohen,” Bezalel Naor writes: “Now that the dust has begun to settle on the freshly dug grave of Leonard Cohen (1934-2016), and we are hopefully past the hullabaloo, past the media circus that witnessed (in Leonard’s own words) ‘all the lousy little poets coming round,’ we may begin to examine with some sobriety the literary legacy of this celebrated bard.
“No, Leonard Cohen did not receive the coveted Nobel Prize for Literature. Instead it was awarded to another Jewish poet, Bob Dylan (aka, Robert Zimmerman). But, about the same time that Dylan was announced a Nobel laureate, Cohen bequeathed to us what would become his farewell song, his Kaddish, ‘You Want It Darker.’ With that, the prodigal son returned home and was clutched to the bosom of his people. Complete with the Biblical Hebrew refrain ‘Hineni’ (‘I’m ready’) and backed up by the cantorial rendition of the hazan of historic Congregation Sha’ar Hashomayim in Montreal, the synagogue Leonard grew up in as a boy, ‘this last song he left us,’ to quote Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, ‘is the most Jewish he ever wrote.’ Indeed, as the Talmud put it, ‘There is one who acquires eternity in a single hour.’”
Rindner, like Zuckier, said there are certain areas in which Lehrhaus will tread more carefully than others. “We’re more centrist and sensitive to conservative perspectives than most other Jewish culture websites out there,” she said. “I think the goal of the site is that the articles are ultimately positive. Criticism can be there, but it’s about strengthening our connection to Torah at the end of the day.”
Lehrhaus can be found at TheLehrhaus.com.
By Phil Jacobs
