Around a table of ice-cold of beer and steaming pizza, one of Judaism’s oldest traditions thrives in a weekly session of raucous Torah study.
It’s called Torah on Tap. This guided discussion of Jewish topics meets every Thursday night on the back patio of Leonardo’s by the Slice in Gainesville, Fla. Leonardo’s is a Gainesville staple and has seen many businesses around it come and go since it opened in 1973. But for the last 10 years, Leonardo’s has also been home to Torah on Tap. Because of Hillel and Leonardo’s, hundreds of students have sat and discussed timeless Jewish concepts over pizza and beer.
“We have this approach that we meet the students where they are,” said Jeffrey Kaplan, program director at the University of Florida Hillel, who helps run Torah on Tap.
Kaplan said the program used to have much more organic and unplanned conversations. Now, around 30 students a week are coming for content that has become much more prepared.
“[It has] never been so regular and consistent as it is now because of our current staff’s dedication and our rabbi’s commitment to new content every week,” Kaplan said.
Printed materials are given to students after Rabbi Daniel Wolnerman, the rabbi at UF’s Hillel, talks about the topic of the night. “Last year, it was more organic, more about sharing your own theory on the topic,” Wolnerman said. “Now it has evolved into interpreting and analyzing sources, classical and modern.”
After coming to Gainesville last year, Wolnerman said, he put a lot of energy into revamping the program to get it ready for this year.
Students are then challenged to face the material in small groups. Then each group presents their thoughts for everyone to discuss.
“It’s a pretty logical choice,” he said. “Students need to eat, and they love pizza and enjoying conversation; so we combined it.”
Not surprisingly, the conversation has been known to wander off topic and dip into some of the more complex parts of Judaism. “It’s not like Madonna’s Kabbalah, but we are scratching the surface of very deep Jewish concepts,” Wolnerman said.
Students are able to enjoy all of this stimulating discussion over pizza and beer because Hillel picks up the tab. “It is a feeding of the body and the soul,” he said.
In the past, Torah on Tap has also had guest speakers like Olympic bobsledding gold medalist Steve Mesler, a UF Hillel alumnus. When Mesler came to talk he passed around his gold medal for all the UF students to hold.
Some members of the Leonardo’s staff also drop in sometimes. The tattooed, pierced and gracious workers occasionally stop working to sit down and listen to the universal topics of ethics, morals and communal responsibility. Much like pizza, everyone can relate to those topics.
“Judaism says we are here to connect the physical and the spiritual world,” Wolnerman said. Food is often seen as something that links those two worlds, especially in Judaism. Almost every Jewish holiday has a food associated with it. Jewish food has been on a few world tours, as Jews travelled from home to home, and their food has gone with them whenever the Jews have been kicked out of a country.
Jordan Barrish is a UF senior and public relations coordinator for Hillel. After one year of pizza and beer, she said she still loves going to Torah on Tap.
“There are two sides to every story,” she said. Her favorite Torah on Tap topic is ethics. “It runs deep for everyone, it runs deep in you,” Barrish said.
One conversation she particularly liked was about giving people the benefit of the doubt in Judaism and not judging others at first glance.
Discussions have drawn from a broad range of topics, centering on subjects like free will, destiny, drugs, alcohol, lying and homosexuality.
On one evening, two students used a debate format as they argued about homosexuality in Judaism, one acting as an Orthodox Jew and the other as a more liberal pro-gay rights Jew.
According to Kaplan, Torah on Tap is held at Leonardo’s because it is a UF institution—plus the pizza and the staff are always great.
Kaplan said, “It is something to brag about when I talk to other schools.”
Benjamin S. Brasch is a third-year Journalism major at the University of Florida with minors in both business administration and ethnomusicology. He is a foodie and fan of all types of music. He is interested in where food comes from, how ingredients are used and what it takes to make a meal that changes people. He is a New Voices Magazine national correspodent.
