04 July 2006

Summer Beit Midrash Begins

Today, on America's Independence Day, the Summer Beit Midrash program (alternatively nicknamed the "Klapper Kollel" (so-called in this description of the program), due to its head, Rabbi Aryeh Klapper) began. The first half of the program, we are located in Sharon, MA, meeting mostly at the Young Israel of Sharon. After spending three weeks in Sharon, we will be spending three weeks in Newton, MA (and not in Brookline, as I had thought).
The daily schedule seems kind of fuzzy to me right now, though I think I have the grasp of some of the parameters: davening at 7.30, breakfast, learning begins at 9.00 in חברותא (learning pairs), then we go until about 1.00 for lunch, then we have a שיעור (lecture discussion) on the texts we went over in the morning, then afternoon learning, which, I believe is open to the community to come in and learn with us, then we might have dinner, and then we daven מנחה and מעריב (afternoon and evening prayers), followed by a little speech given either by one of us or by Rabbi Klapper, ending around 9.00.
Today, though, was a bit different - following the afternoon lecture, we went over to the Klappers' house for a BBQ, which was chill and we had a lecture there, as well.
At this point, I now describe what we are learning. We are learning about the topic of ממזרים (after today, I'm a bit confused on how to translate it, but the most common translation is the topic of bastards). At some other point in time, I hope to describe a little bit about our learning, though it's quite late right now. Suffice it so say, today gave me a good background on the topic.
As far as uploading audio files of the lectures, I'm not quite sure yet what to do about that, but suffice it to say that I have been recording them. (You may be asking, "Since when have I started recording things?" (And if you're not asking, that's fine also, but I really should have posted about it separately.) The answer is the last day of school this year when I recorded a shiur on havdallah, followed up by my recording of the sessions at the Modern Orthodoxy conference in Scranton.) I hope to continue recording them.
One final point I am going to mention before heading to bed at a much later hour than I had intended: with such a schedule, I'm going to have to be strict with myself in terms of jogging in the evening. With such a long day, it'll be easy to skip it. I'm already not going to be lifting any weights, so I better be good about the jogging - even if it's every other night.
Okay, good night.
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting that a Mamzerim--the products of Gilui Arayos--are the subject of a co-ed "kollel."
YC

Anonymous said...

Drew, please ignore the previous comment. It accomplishes nothing in showing anyone the problem inherent in having a co-ed kollel.
Sorry for the unnecessary snideness.
YC

thanbo said...

What equipment do you use to record? I've been thinking about getting a better MP3 recorder than my little Sandisk player/recorder, for recording folksinging circles.