Torah Study

I just got home from my first formal Torah study in years. One of the first things that I inquired about at Hillel, when I got into town is whether they have Torah study group. At the time they didn?t because their long serving rabbi just left the congregation, and he used to lead it. But last week Hillel?s director told me that this week the Torah study will be restarted by the request of a student. Basically she had the same idea and need: to study Torah.I hoped that it would be somewhat similar to the exploratory nature of the group I used to study with in Hungary. I.e. we all interpret and try to understand the text on our own. If someone who is more versed in traditional Jewish lore is present then great she/he can tell us more. If not, then whatever perspective the people present have that defined what we got out of the text. So I had the impression that something like this would happen. I was wrong. Another student invited a young Orthodox rabbi. This detail changed the whole dynamics. Or maybe I should say changed, because this was the first event. But it was very clear that he was leading the event. He had an agenda and some very specific lessons he wanted us to learn. E.g. he asked what questions arise for use from the text, but when he didn’t hear the ones he wanted to answer then he just asked those and answered them right away. This is not my favored method of learning. Don?t get me wrong, I appreciate that he was here, because he clearly had more knowledge of the material. He quoted Rashi and Rambam. (Which raised another sore point for me: he didn?t give any historical context for them. I know a little bit about these authoritative figures, but I am not sure that my fellow students do. There were altogether 5 people present: the rabbi, a student he knew from Israel, the student who organized the event, the Hillel director and myself. I will attend next week again, but if this tendency of being dominated by the rabbi will remain I may be less and less enthusiastic in the future. You may ask whether I learned anything new. Sure I did. E.g. from the 613 Torah commandments there are only 3 on Bereshit (Genesis). That escorting your guests brings provides a closer connection to God, then praying. (This is what Abraham did when the three angels appeared at his tent: he lifted his eyes stopped having a vision (‘Vayera’.) Overall I enjoyed studying Torah. Including that I spent half an hour before the meeting looking up commanteries, midrashim. Will see next week, maybe more people will show up.