The following article, which appeared in the Jewish Review in 2004, gives a more comprehensive overview of Ad Olam and Rabbi Hanan Sills. Most of the classes and events mentioned are from previous years. To take a look at the classes and events that were happening in the Ad Olam community in 2004 please see our our archived website here.
Portland Jewish Review
April 15,2004
Nissan 24,5764
Volume 46, No.16
Shabbat Tazriah-Metzorah
April 23 -24:Light candles at 7:50p.m.
The Jewish garden of Ad Olam's
Rabbi Hanan Sills
Jewish life shines through window created by Rabbi Sills
BY AMY KAUFMAN
Jewish Review
Rabbi Hanan Sills, founder of the University of Oregon's Hillel program and Eugene's Ad Olam ("synagogue without walls"), now has an office, but that was not always the case.
Sills, who has five daughters and a son, has performed the tender duties of a rabbi from a trailer, on communes, at lakefront camps and from the back of his car. His odyssey as a rabbi has taken him into the hearts and homes of students, intermarried couples, Jews alienated from tradition and children who call him "Wabbi."
After serving as a Hillel director for 18 years and teaching Judaic studies in universities for 25 years, Sills still maintains that it is important to bring Yiddishkeit back into the home and to understand Shabbat as the essence of Judaism. And his hours haven't gotten any shorter.
Ad Olam is the culmination of years of teaching and outreach, or, as the meditative rabbi puts it, "inreach." Sills brings "the spirit of Jewish wellness" into homes; guides life-cycle events; conducts Shabbat and High Holy Day services; hosts a community Pesach seder; and tutors and mentors teens.
Through Ad Olam Sills offers a host of pragmatic courses, believing it is important to supplement a person's "emotional and gut-level positive feelings" with true learning.
Ad Olam offers educational and spiritual accompaniment for every phase of the Jewish year. This spring there will be a course on kabbalistic teachings and a class based on Rabbi Lawrence Kushner's "The Mystical Book of Letters," as well as beginning Hebrew. In the fall Sills will teach "Inner Preparation for the Days of Awe" and will present a six-week series of "fascinating films and documentaries" on Jewish mysticism.
Sills describes himself as "a grandfather" of "the post-Shoah Neo-Hassidic Jewish Renewal movement." At a lecture on this subject April 28 at 7:30 p.m., he will show his film, "Joys of Jewishing," which was the name of his camp for adults in Mendocino.
Beginning in October, Ad Olam will offer monthly Shabbat services "filled with music, meditation, poetry and story" to people of all backgrounds. The author of "Shabbos: Giving the World a Heart," Sills believes it is important to introduce Shabbat to non-Jews so that "people know what we stand for."
"It's important in America to know about your religion, because when there's no knowledge, there's a shadow and it leaves a place for fear," he said.
Sills first became aware that he was a Jew at age 7, when his classmates called him a dirty Jew.
"I knew what dirty meant; I didn't know what Jew meant," he recalled.
As a history student at Rutgers University, he discovered Hillel and "My whole life changed," he said. "I realized I had a home."
Sills received his bachelor's and master's degrees in Hebrew Letters and his ordination as a Reform rabbi from the Jewish Institute of Religion, Hebrew Union College, in New York.
He served as a Navy and Marine chaplain before taking his first pulpit in a 4,700-member Reform congregation in Milwaukie, Wisc. From 1965 to 1971 he was a professor at the University of Texas and the rabbi of Hillel. He received his Ph.D. in Jewish philosophy from the Union Graduate School of the City University of New York. He then taught Judaic studies at the University of Colorado.
Sills emulated the rabbis of the past when he became a circuit rabbi in rural Mendocino, Calif., in 1976. There was no synagogue in the area, and Sills visited people in the communes and small towns like a country doctor, dispensing just the right dose of Judaism in each home. He spent 10 years at this work, which was funded by Jewish Federation of San Francisco.
During the next decade, Sills laid the groundwork for today's thriving Hillel at the University of Oregon. (See box.) After serving as a counselor and adviser for about 1,000 Jewish students at the University of Oregon, Sills founded the U of O Hillel program in 1985. In a 1995 retrospective, Jewish Review reported that he began as an unpaid volunteer, working out of the back of his Datsun, while also teaching at U of O.
According to Sharon Ungerúleider, who was U of O Hillel president from 1990 to 1995, Sills "actually created a Jewish renaissance on campus."
"He realized how important it was to provide High Holiday services for students," she said. "He started the Shabbat tradition, making sure students participated in cooking for their Shabbat. ŠHe is a great storyteller Šand one of the cornerstones [of his Friday night services] would be a student that Hanan had inspired to tell Chassidic stories. He is a dynamic, eclectic and creative person who could really Š understand that it was empowering students that would drive the growing creative vision of a Hillel."
Oscar Boonshoft, a Jewish philanthropist from Ohio, so appreciated Sills' inspired teaching of his son that he donated $275,000 toward the purchase of Hillel House in Eugene.
In 1995 the National Board of Hillel honored Sills with its "Founders Award" for lifetime achievement. More than 75 Hillel supporters attended the reception honoring Sills. U of O Professor Richard Stein presented the award with the words: "Sills' combination of the worldly and the unworldly has given him a profound impact on the lives of young people at Oregon and elsewhere for many years." He referred to "lives literally saved" by Sills.
The rabbi now has an office but would be grateful for the funds to secure administrative help.
His mission remains "nothing less than the mitzvah of reviving the home as the center of Jewish life, which it was for millennia."
Hillel springs from seeds sown by Sills
Hillel House, at 1059 Hilyard Street in Eugene, serves about 1,200 students at the University of Oregon. About 60 percent of these students are from Portland, according to Sharon Ungerleider, former Hillel president.
Rabbi Hanan Sills was "the beginning of the dream," said Ungerleider, because he said, "If you build a house, they will come." She said he was the first to realize that it was important to partner with the faculty at U of O, and he cultivated a relationship by inviting them to luncheons.
Sills was "empowering and inspiring," said Ungerleider, and he mentored many of Hillel's first student leaders.
"He made sure we had a full-fledged kosher kitchen," she said, and he started the tradition of holding (and cooking) warm, intimate Shabbat dinners.
He also organized the first Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services for students, parents and faculty.
Oregon Hillel, The Foundaútion for Jewish Campus Life, has an impressive calendar of activities. Club Israel supports Israel, organizes charitable projects and develops leadership skills; Tzedek Hillel focuses on social justice, the environment, hunger and homelessness, and elder issues; the Outdoor Adventures Group goes hiking, rafting and skiing; the Jewish Women's Collective celebrates Rosh Chodesh.
For more information about Hillel, call Executive Director Hal Applebaum at 541-343-8920.