First Day of Class at JUC!

Greetings Blog Fans!

Just wanted to give you another update. First, I just wanted to let you know where the title of this blog comes from. There is a phrase in an ancient Jewish source called "The Mishnah" that instructs the reader to "be covered in the dust of the Rabbi, and drink in his words." The idea was that you would find a Rabbi, and follow that Rabbis way of life so closely that you would be covered in his dust as you walked behind him. That is where the first part of the title originates from. The second part of the title, "Yeshua" is the name "Jesus" in Hebrew. This name Yeshua literally means, "God Saves." My goal in life and while I'm over here, is to follow Jesus (who was a 1st century Jewish Rabbi) so closely that I am "covered in the dust of the rabbi."

Anyway, on to the events of the day. Although we had an extensive field trip yesterday, today was our first official day of classes. I had a 2 hour class this morning called, "Rabbinic Thought and Literature." Whats interesting about this class is that it is taught by an ordained Orthodox Jewish Rabbi. And believe me, this man knows his Bible backwards and forwards, it is quite amazing. So the Rabbi who teaches this class is Rabbi Moshe (Moses) Silberschein, and he is an amazing teacher. Today we walked through Genesis 2, and attempted to study the text through eastern eyes. Eastern thinkers look at the text in different ways than we do as westerners. The Rabbis believed that each scripture was like a gem, and each time you turned it, the light refracted in a different, beautiful way. So today we looked at Genesis 2, and performed "Midrash" (close examination) on this text. We asked a lot of questions, and discovered what light could shine from this gem of text. It was very interesting.

Well I have the rest of the afternoon to explore and study. I'm thinking of heading back to the Old City this afternoon. I want to return to the "Upper Room" and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and spend some more time exploring there. I hope everyone is doing well. I look forward to hearing from you!

Staying Dusty,

Rob Kol
robkol2@gmail.com