Elior Sterling
NEW ZEALAND
Elior Sterling is a semi-nomadic Jewish educator and a rabbinic student at the pluralist Academy for Jewish Religion in New York. He is also a member of cohort 3 of SVARA's Pedagogy Chabura, a training and mentorship program for experienced Jewish educators who are experimenting with applying SVARA's teaching methods in a variety of Jewish spaces. From 2020 until May 2025, he served as education director and lay spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Israel of Walla Walla, a small Jewish community in rural eastern Washington state in the USA. Since 2023 he has been developing a series of online and in person classes that each focus on a single prayer in the siddur, dissecting the meanings of the Hebrew and Aramaic words, and diving into conversation with text.
SESSION INFO
SATURDAY 2-3pm
What do Adam and Eve, and Torah and Mitzvot have in common?
When we study texts in translation, we’re studying an interpretation. When the original is our own language, sometimes we don’t realize some of the deeper meanings behind familiar words. Whether you just learned your aleph bet or have studied Torah in Hebrew your whole life, approaching a text with fresh eyes and Jastrow’s dictionary can be eye opening. We'll spend an hour digging into the meaning and context of just one word to see how our own interpretations of well known texts change and expand.