Hebrew--January term 2009

From an email sent to RRISD friends January 16, 2009

Hi, Friends,

Tonight, I am taking a break from my Hebrew studies (long weekend and we had a test today) and thought I'd email you.

This has been my schedule (and will continue to be throughout January): Up at 6 am, devotional (keeping me sane), eat, get ready for class, study, walk the dog, go to class for 4 hours, come home to walk the dog & eat lunch, go to study hall until right before supper, when I walk the dog, cook & eat supper, go to study hall until 9:30, come home make vocabulary cards, study, go to bed. Recycle for the next day. (Study hall=work with classmates on homework which we can do *only* as a group as it seems only one brain is not enough to figure all this stuff out.)

It *is* intense right now, but I am officially halfway through it. The best thing about Hebrew is that I'm building relationships with my classmates. We struggle over the language in class and out of class in study hall. We cry, we laugh, we swear (we made up a Hebrew swear word), we go bonkers--all together! After a mentally grueling 2nd week (and a particularly difficult homework the night before---think of 40 minutes per sentence of translation, 5 sentences to translate--and this is with us working together trying to figure out the words), we basically lost our marbles for about 30 minutes last night while we were studying for our test. After our good laugh/cry, we found those marbles and went back to studying.

The seminary is very supportive--wanting us to pass. They have provided 5 Teaching Assistants for our class of 40 (1 for each of 4 "sections"--meet for 30 minutes after class to go over the lecture and ask questions-- and 1 to work with those students who are having a particularly hard time--like Karen B does for OTE students) and often the TAs NOT on duty at study hall show up to help us--even though they don't get paid if it's not their day to do study hall. Our professor has shown up both Thursday evenings before our Friday tests, checking on us, boosting our morale and answering questions. We study in the cafeteria. We need to have access to food!

It *is* hard, but there will be some reward when I am able to read scriptures in Hebrew and see the nuances in the language. Our professor read Genesis 1: 1 -3 to us this week and then began to translate--starting with "As God was creating" instead of "In the beginning". He said that reading/interpreting the text this way indicates that we are invited into relationship with God at the very moment God was creating--that's how much God loves us--very powerful to me. Today he talked about how the Hebrew people viewed this language as a gift from God. They understood that it was a hard language, but that made sense to them. If it was easy, it would be from humans. They felt gifted that God would allow them to try to understand God's language.

So, I'm looking at this experience through the lens of gratitude--that I have this opportunity, that my acquaintances are becoming close friendships, and that (hopefully) this will be a door to understanding the texts and consequently sharing that understanding with others.

By the way, I suspect I'm gaining the reputation in this neighborhood (off- campus area where I walk the dog) of being the crazy lady who talks gibberish to herself since I use dog-walking time to review---the Hebrew alphabet, vowels, conjugating verbs, reciting pronouns, pronominal suffixes, performatives and afformatives, etc. But can I sing those suffixes!

Peace,
Mari Lyn