By Sara Trappler-Spielman, Chabad.org
Rivka Eilfort is an 18-year-old Chasidic singer and songwriter whose parents serve as Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries in southern California. She sings deep, mystical lyrics while playing the guitar like a natural star.
“Rivka was always attracted to music,” says her mother, Nechama Eilfort. “She composed on the piano and guitar from a young age. She breathed music.”
Eilfort wants to pursue a music career and study music professionally. She dreams of performing concerts for Jewish girls and recording CDs, but opportunities have typically been scarce for observant Jewish female artists who adhere to the Judaism’s laws of modesty and as such, do not perform in front of men.
That is until a groundbreaking new program, the Tzohar Seminary for Chassidus and the Arts, opened its doors this fall in Pittsburgh, Pa. Its first group of 11 talented young women is literally singing its praises, as well as dancing, painting, writing, performing and filming.
Eilfort, who attends Tzohar, is studying traditional Jewish texts like most of the girls she went to high school with, but she’s also developing her passion for music. She is already learning new skills at Tzohar to help her along the way: reading music, videography, music theory and voice lessons by a professional opera singer.
“Girls are dying to play music,” says her mother, who serves as the rebbetzin at Chabad of La Costa in Carlsbad, Calif. “They should be living it. The school’s goal is to take the talent. They can still be Chasidic, creative and modest.”
Around the world, most Jewish day school girls attend seminary the year after their high school graduation. They embark on a year of spiritual self-discovery, often away from home, while they gain skills in teaching and learning Torah.
Chabad-Lubavitch run seminaries exist in such countries as Israel, Australia, Italy and Canada, and in cities throughout the United States, but this is the first time a seminary is integrating the deeper, inner dimensions of Chasidic thought with the creative arts.
“Tzohar seminary, like a window, will let in the light of creativity into the students’ lives,” explains Amy Guterson, the school’s founder and director, who chose a name for her institution by looking at the Hebrew word used to describe the window and precious stone that brought light to Noah’s Ark.
“Together with learning Chasidic thought and their sense of purpose, the students’ G‑d given talents will help project the beauty of Torah to the world in a new way,” she adds.
By offering college-comparable courses in the arts such as writing, music, dance, fine arts, theatre and filmmaking, as well as classes in Chasidic philosophy with notable teachers, Tzohar is helping its students develop their skills in a creative yet sacred environment.
Guterson is a Pittsburgh artist who studied theatre at Stern College for Women in New York and then earned her graduate degree in acting from The New Actors Workshop. She studied with acclaimed actress Uta Hagen and respected director Mike Nichols and was a member of Actor’s Equity, and performed off-Broadway.
Her journey led her from the non-religious theater world to the Chabad community in Pittsburgh, where she became involved in creative community projects.
New Opportunities
In the past, Guterson struggled with what she saw as a restriction for religious and female artists – not only couldn’t she grace the stage on the Sabbath, but she was restricted in performing for a general mixed audience.
Although she originally felt she had to make a choice between art and religion, Guterson eventually embraced both seemingly opposite worlds by realizing that art can complement or come from Judaism itself.
“The limitations of not being able to act in the theater world on Shabbat made me create my own opportunities, and become a writer, director and producer as well,” she relates.
Among her listed achievements was creating the award-winning festival film, “Becoming Rachel,” and heading a diverse all-women’s theater group in her community called Kol Isha, which created original productions based on issues of Jewish womanhood and Jewish unity.
“There’s something in women-for-women performance pieces,” Guterson enthuses. “What I saw before as limitations I now see as directing me down my path. We should be creating performances and events to reach women across all spectrums.”
Guterson believes her seminary is filling the need to create venues for Chasidic female artists. In addition to plays, videos and artistic projects her students will share with the community, they will also teach after-school arts at the Jewish day schools and teach Judasim through the arts in local Hebrew schools.
The seminary is also helping to connect the community of Pittsburgh by serving as a focal point for many local artists and writers now practicing Judaism. There’s an impressive array of faculty with artistic and academic backgrounds who serve as mentors and teachers to Tzohar students, whether in the classically Judaic subjects or in the arts.
Guterson pooled together teachers from nearby, such as filmmaking instructor Leibel Cohen, creator of the popular “Agent Emes” DVD series for Jewish children, and Rabbi Shais Taub, director of Judaism website Chabad.org’s multimedia portal Jewish.TV and author of the successful teaching tool The Map of Tanya and Soul Maps. Leah-Perl Shollar, an educator and published author, is teaching creative writing with Jewish sources.
Guterson, who is teaching theater, sees her role as “nurturing students’ talents.” She wants her students to integrate learning, creativity and life with the themes they explore in works of Jewish law, Torah commentaries, history, and the talks and discourses of the Lubavitcher Rebbes.
The school’s principal is Rabbi Aaron Herman, who is known for his teaching skills and developing curricula, including courses for the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute. After spending 13 years as a Chabad rabbi in Raleigh, N.C., Herman returned to his hometown of Pittsburgh as Tzohar was getting started.
“All the [Judaic] classes we hope will be an inspiration for the arts classes,” says Herman. “Students can take a new idea that they learn and apply it. It shows an integration of an idea if you can express it in a different manner.”
Backing the seminary are Rabbi Yisroel and Blumie Rosenfeld, the head Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries of Western Pennsylvania who function as the school’s spiritual mentors. Witnessing Guterson’s success with many projects for the Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburg, Blumie Rosenfeld admired Guterson’s new concept for the arts seminary.
“The girls feel they need to use their talents to express themselves and Amy is giving them a chance to use if for holiness,” explains Rosenfeld. “It can have a profound impact on their lives and on future generations.”
Rochel Goldsmith, who was raised in Iowa, decided to attend the seminary because her mother is an artist and she grew up in an artistic home. Wanting to pursue a career in the arts, Goldsmith originally planned to attend the Pratt Institute and then heard about Tzohar.
“Arts and Chasidic thought are both big parts of my life,” says the pianist, fine artist and writer. “The seminary is teaching me how to mesh the two. In my head it was either one or the other, and so this opportunity jumped out at me.”
Her mother, Shoshana Goldsmith, says she wanted to send her daughter to a seminary where she could develop her artistic talents and also nurture her spiritual growth.
“There’s a crisis today that education is not meeting our needs,” says Goldsmith. “Tzohar caters to the needs of every person. You don’t have to fit into their mold; they’re just enhancing what you already have.”
“Our hopes in creating the Tzohar Seminary are to show girls they can find a place within their world to use their talents, and that they are meant to use them to communicate Torah and Chasidic thought to a greater audience and open a world where creativity is used for the service of G‑d,” says Guterson. “I believe women are leading the way.”
i luv u guys! im gonna miss u!!!!!! <3 sara c
goooooo ashleyyyyyyyyy u lookkk amazingggg in these photographs 🙂 ur drum talents mesmerize me
mushkkiiee!!!! miss ya here! so happy ur having amazing time:) u look it!
Ashley Keep making us FLoridians proud 🙂
goooo mushy 😉
Go Ashley Joseph go! Uda best Champ out there 🙂
mushkie wats up!
Dearest Amy, Terrific article about Tzohar…..Zeide and I are busitng our buttons with pride….With love, Bubby
mushkie!!!!! the ppl there are lucky to have u and ur amazing talent!!!!!! miss the guitar!~
Mushkie P!! keep playing your beautifull music…:)
i wish i was 18 again so I could attend!! what a super idea
Yasher koach, Tzohar! Hotzlocha, Chaya Joseph!
Tamar, KIT its been ages!!!
What a wonderful place to learn! My daughter and I spent the day visiting the school last week and we were very impressed by Amy’s vision and Rabbi Herman’s teaching. The girls are serious about their Torah studies and art. We are definitely considering it for next year.
Whoo Mushkie Looking good!!! Keep up the beautiful music!! We miss you!! MOSHIACH NOW!
go roch shaina and rivka yayay woohooo lol
woohoo!!! Go MIryiam! you look amazing!! and soo happy! im soo happy for u!! looks like ur having fun!!
Yasher Koach Amy and family,
RL from MTL
Go Tzohar and ciao from Italia! 😉
i’ll love this seminary !! its my dream to be an actor, or a singer !! this seminary is for me !
hazakk
now she keeps getting more chassidish…
Recently i visited Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, hometown to some of the worlds best sports teams, chassidishkeit, schools, everything u could ask for. I took a tour of the seminary, Tzohar. not only can their talents grow each at their own level, their chassidishkeit too. the girls do not want to leave Rabbi Hermans class, he teaches the girls through the learning and his own actions. This is a place i would want my daughter to go. much hatzlacha and I”YH i will see more girls when i visit again next year.
are there any boy yeshivas like this?or bachurim doing this???why not!!!!
Who are u?
Amy, a dream come true! Hatzlocho, and may all the Rebbes brochos to you be fulfilled. Very special to be nurturing young women in this way.
RG from SA
hi ashley
go naomi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
finally someone is catering towards this talented crowd!!
go mushky!
You are a real inspiration to your family friends and the entire CH, may you go from strength to strength and only know happiness in your life.
Is chassidus going to be learned on a high level?
we have much nachos from the bird!! keep it up!!!!
GO AGENT EMES’S ‘MUM’! LOL
i think this is amazing and i wish there was something like this when i was looking into which sem i wanted to go to
wonderful wonderful,.,.,.where were you 38 years ago,….? when I came into CH then, the arts were considered friivolous aka bitual zman .pity–but now so many of us are making up for all those years and encouraging ourselves,uur children anda grandchildren to develop their creative “muse” .So many of us follow different paths, paths to be praised and encouraged as we are not clones but creative human beings with different stories to wrtie,sing, paint, dance, play and weave, etc. etc.hatzlacha!
love, ur dc 😉
tanya say hi and congrats on ur sis..:)