by Rabbi Andrea Cosnowsky and Jay Rapoport, Tiferet Segel (Faculty)

Greetings from the land of the Golden Age of Sephardic Jewry.  We are touching the voices from the past such as Moses Maimonides, Moses ibn Ezra, Shmuel Ha-nagid, and Judah Halevi. We read HaLevi’s “My Heart is in the East” and learned about his yearning for Zion.  We have studied how, after the expulsion from Spain, the Jews left or stayed and converted and how some hid their Judaism. We’ve explored the themes of Sephardic Jewry- having to hide one’s religion and customs and how it affects a person through art, music and theater.  We learned about how the customs of Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews differed and how historically we came to be united together in the big tent of Judaism through the land of Israel.

In visual arts, we’ve started to make 3 dimensional drawings of Sephardic Judaism and the way nature influenced the themes we’ve seen in prints and drawings we’ve studied.  In theater, we’re learning about how we share similar stories and folklore, but our geographical differences inform and suggest different outcomes to the same stories.  In music, we’ve learned how melodies and syncopation came from Muslim influence as the customs and practices of both groups through the years, intertwined.

This week, we will continue to explore more deeply, these themes and the ways they influenced art, science, music and customs.  As we continue to sing, learn, play and grapple together, we come closer to understanding our own customs and rituals, and create and weave together this magical tapestry that’s known as Tiferet Aleph.

Rabbi Andrea Cosnowsky serves as Senior Rabbi at Congregation Etz Chaim in Lombard, IL. Jay Rapoport serves as Director of Lifelong Learning at Temple Sholom in Chicago, IL.