Elizabeth Leiman Kraiem – Ki Karov Hu
 Elizabeth
Leiman Kraiem has developed her skills and learned in the Yesodot program
at Drisha Institute over the past several years. She is a member of Congregation
B'nai Jeshurun, where she helps prepare b'nai mitzvah and adults to chant
from the Torah, haftarot and megillot. She has a JD from Yale Law School,
and has worked at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and the Nathan
Cummings Foundation. She lives with her husband, Ruben, and two children
in Manhattan. |
In the fall of 2001, B'nei Yisrael left Egypt in Rachel
Friedman's Parshanut class. The Torah tells us that God sent them
on a roundabout path, by the Sea of Reeds, instead of on the nearer path,
which was by way of the land of the Philistines.
I had come to Drisha on a roundabout path myself, about a year earlier. I
had abandoned my law degree, left my job at a large foundation, and taken
classes at the Jewish Theological Seminary and Hebrew Union College. I found
the schedules there incompatible with the needs of my (then) young children,
and was grateful to find a place where havruta took place during
class time rather than when I was mashing vegetables and running baths.
The Parshanut class spent several sessions on the puzzling phrase "ki
karov hu" (Exodus 13: 17), which the Torah uses to describe God's
rejection of the Philistine route. A lesson in geography rapidly became a
window into the possible motivations and "states of mind" of the
main actors in the story: B'nei Yisrael, God, Pharoah. It also became
a window into the minds of my classmates: accomplished, articulate women who
brought their experience -- as teachers, mothers, grandmothers, daughters,
caregivers, lawyers, docents, home-makers, volunteers, dentists, therapists,
and more -- to bear on our text.
Some commute long distances to come to class. Occasionally, women who travel
even farther, from places like Argentina, England, Russia, and France, join
us for a semester or two. Most identify themselves as Modern Orthodox, but
the rest of us, I suspect, spread out on a continuum of observance and practice.
There is always respect and tolerance for one another, because there is love
and reverence for what we study. Our gifted teacher, Rachel Friedman, sets
this tone, keeping us on point and on common ground.
I think of "ki karov hu" when I think about Drisha. Other
venues may offer more streamlined approaches to text, a certain kind of clarity,
even academic credit, and yet I am here because of, and despite that fact.
I cannot imagine a place with greater intellectual integrity, or such love
for our people and our texts. I look forward to studying with Rachel Friedman
and my fellow students at Drisha for years to come.
