Hebrew Union College Rabbinic Diploma- A Visual Collage
Collage is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. Wikipedia
While writing this chapter i glanced at my ordination diploma on the wall and suddenly saw it as a visual. The visual hangs on the walls of rabbis all over the world who completed their studies at one of the campuses of the Hebrew Union College- Jewish Institute of Religion.
Borrowing from discussions of the Talmud page layout, the “tzurat ha-daf”, the diploma layout has a mixture of words, symbols from what would be expected from a progressive academic institution, and a somewhat unexpected Jewish traditional motif.
The top section identifies the Hebrew Union College- Jewish Institute of Religion as the granting entity, and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations as patron of the school. The UAHC has been renamed The Union for Reform Judaism as of 2003.
The choice of Hebrew and the Menorah were deliberate when the organization was founded by Isaac Meyer Wise in 1873, to distinguish the reform movement from entities that labelled themselves as Jewish.
Then appears a symbol with a significant history
HUC-JIR Logo
The two columns in the middle of the diploma would appear to be similar text, the one in English and the other in Hebrew, but there are some surprises one the Hebrew side:
The Hebrew letters “Bet” and “Hey” form the abbreviation of the words בעזרת השם, “be-ezrat Hashem” with the help of God. Common is parlance and texts, the practice is quite unexpected in a liberal seminary context.
The verbage of the two columns uses slightly different formulaic language to inform the reader that the named individual has satisfied all the academic requirements for the awarding of the title “Morainu HaRav”(our teacher the Rav), Rabbi.
Just below my name, English on the left and Hebrew on the right, are the sections in this image.
While the English is somewhat generic and appropriate for a liberal seminary, the Hebrew uses very traditional terminology referring to a rabbi as “Yorah Yorah, Yadin, Yadin”
יורה יורה (“Yoreh Yoreh”) and ידין ידין (“Yadin Yadin”) are surprising because of their Halachic or Jewish legalistic nature: Yoreh Yoreh covers areas that deal with the day to day questions that rabbis might receive, such as questions on kashrut or taharat hamishpacha.
Yadin Yadin covers the type of knowledge that one would need to adjudicate cases between individuals- either in monetary or marital laws. (https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/38703/yoreh-yoreh-vs-yadin-yadin)
And may the lord his god be with him -2 chronicles 36:23, then
That line is an adaptation of Ps. 45:4:
וַהֲדָרְךָ׀ צְלַח רְכַב עַל־דְּבַר־אֱמֶת וְעַנְוָה־צֶדֶק וְתוֹרְךָ נוֹרָאוֹת יְמִינֶךָ: (תהלים פרק מה פסוק ה)
“Win success; ride on in the cause of truth and meekness and right.” (Rabbi Richard Sarason)
Thus perhaps the huc-jir diploma is a visual that presents to the average viewer the legitimacy of the Rabbi whose name appears therein, and a visual that is meant to address the challenges the holder has in fulfilling his or her obligations as “our teach the rav”
From Rabbi Rick Sarason:
Hi, Nick—-This is a (partial) representation of the official seal of the College—a depiction of an open Torah scroll, surrounded at the top by the words חתום תורה בלמודי (from Isa. 8:16—“Seal the instruction/Torah in my disciples”), and at the bottom by הבקר אור (from Gen 44:3). The image and the verses for the seal were chosen by Isaac Mayer Wise back in 1875.
Here’s a fuller account (from one of my Founders’ Day addresses):
The Great Seal of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion was devised by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise. It appropriately bears the image of a sefer torah, a Torah scroll, symbolizing the sacred learning and living that this institution was intended to embody.
Surrounding the Torah scroll is a circlet of Hebrew letters, the words from two verses of Scripture. The first text, חֲתוֹם תּוֹרָה בְּלִמֻּדָי , is the second half of Isaiah 8:16. The full verse reads: צוֹר תְּעוּדָה חֲתוֹם תּוֹרָה בְּלִמֻּדָי—-“Bind up the message; seal the instruction with My disciples.” The prophet trusts that his divine message will be fulfilled at some future time, even if that is not so clear in the present. Wise wanted the Torah—the sacred instruction of Jewish tradition—to be sealed in each one of his disciples, his rabbinical students, so that each would become throughout their lifetime a living Torah, an ever-flowing source of Jewish teaching to American Jews hungry for the word of God.
The second text, הבוקר אור , is the first two words of Genesis 44:3, הבוקר אור והאנשים שולחו המה וחמוריהם , “With the first morning light, the men—Joseph’s brothers—were sent off with their pack animals.” Not a very inspiring verse, at first glance. But Wise was raised in the rabbinic tradition of midrash, of strong interpretation. He knew that if you isolate the first two words, they can be read as a separate sentence: “In the morning, light!” And, as our late teacher Ezra Spicehandler once taught us, that is precisely how this verse was read by the Maskilim, the late eighteenth-/early nineteenth-century Enlighteners, who saw the modernization of Jewish education as the way to bring light to the Jews, and from the Jews to the world. Wise knew that tradition, too. He believed that his students, in whom the Torah was sealed, would go forth and bring the light of Torah to the world. That light would dispel the darkness of ignorance, superstition, fear, and finally bring forth the ultimate light of a perfected and redeemed world.
So, that is the symbolic sense of the College’s seal.
Note, BTW, that there is no Hebrew in the seal of the UAHC. Note also that the UAHC seal is placed ABOVE the HUC seal. You will see also that the gold embossed stamp affixed is, once more, the HUC seal—but this time with the full text of the seal.
You note correctly the appeal on the Hebrew side of the diploma to traditional wordings being used here symbolically, like ב”ה and יורה יורה ידין ידין . The latter is completely symbolic, as you note—since Orthodox semichah only includes yoreh yoreh. (Yadin yadin is not applicable where Jewish life is not completely governed by Jewish law)—-and neither pertains to what a non-traditional rabbi does (Yoreh yoreh only by considerable extension).
The Hebrew text also (accurately) notes that the ordinee has studied תורה וחכמת ישראל. The latter is the standard Hebrew translation of Wissenschaft des Judentums, referring to academic study of Judaism, Jewish literature and tradition, etc.