By Syd Holt
Coming from a very secular family in St. Louis, for the majority of my childhood my Jewish identity only consisted of celebrating the main holidays. Although my interest in Judaism grew as I got older, I lacked a lot of the basic Jewish knowledge that a lot of kids my age had gained through Jewish Day Schools or Hebrew School. So, throughout USY, camp religious programming, and college courses, I often sat back and listened to everyone else discuss during text study because I didn't feel like I had anything to contribute.
When we did the text study on Friday night, I worked with two people who have grown up in religious families, and overall have a lot of Jewish knowledge. Even though I did not understand or know as much as they did, I felt different than I had in high school doing a similar text study. Instead of sitting back and listening, I was totally comfortable asking the simple questions I didn't know the answers to. In result of this, I was able to understand and participate in the text study so much more than I ever have before.
After only a few days of being together, I realized that the group of people I will be spending the semester with are extremely special. Because of our diverse backgrounds and life stories, each person is able to learn from one another, like I was from the others in my text study group. After this program, intended to teach us about the text study of the week, I learned much more than the story we were discussing. I learned about others' religious backgrounds, their beliefs regarding the text, and even why they keep Shabbat every week. This text study program opened my eyes to so much, and I can't wait to see what else I am able to learn from the others in the Nachshon Project this semester.
