In Elul 5752, a letter went out from Deb Kram, Roni Pick, Leah Secunda and Helen Weglein inviting the Boston Jewish community to attend Ma'ayan's inaugural event: a lecture by Founding Director Rabbi Seth Farber on the topic of Yom Kippur in Parashat Emor. This announcement garnered an enthusiastic response: over one hundred women came out for Rabbi Farber's inspiring talk at Phyllis Hammer's house, marking an auspicious start for Ma'ayan as an organization.
From the beginning, a primary goal of Ma'ayan was to engage students actively in the process of learning. Nourishing both the spirit and the intellect in a supportive and inclusive atmosphere, Ma'ayan welcomes women of all ages and backgrounds to further their Jewish learning and to study Jewish text in ways that were previously unavailable to them.
More than thirty years later, Ma'ayan's students have numbered in the thousands. Technological advances have allowed Ma'ayan to expand beyond the Boston area, bringing teachers and students from around the world together in a shared virtual classroom. Ma'ayan has also been proud to mark historic milestones in women's Torah learning alongside our community, including partnering with Hadran to celebrate the first international Siyum HaShas for Women in 2020, where the women of Greater Boston completed Masechet Rosh Hashana together as part of an international effort to complete the entire Talmud.
Ma'ayan's mandate remains the same: to create rich, dynamic opportunities for our community members to engage authentically and profoundly with Jewish texts. The interaction between students, faculty, and the text generates exciting, sophisticated conversations, which delight our students, whether they are new to Jewish text or have been learning Torah all their lives.