The Union for Reform Judaism has announced that its daily 10 Minutes of Torah email (with over 20,000 subscribers) is making every Tuesday “Mishnah Day”. This weekly Mishnah study will include Hebrew text, English translation, and commentary, and begins next week at the beginning, with Masechet Berachot.
As a blogger who has been both a frequent defender of Reform Judaism and critic of the Reform movement, I think this is excellent news. This is exactly the direction that the Reform movement should be going in. If done well. “Mishnah Day” will enable people to engage directly with the primary sources that constitute the foundation for all subsequent Jewish tradition (in any denomination) while looking at these texts through a perspective infused with progressive Jewish values, and will give people the tools to make informed decisions about their individual and communal practices.
To subscribe by email or RSS, go to the website and select “Tuesday”. (It still says “Hebrew Connections” right now, but I assume they’ll fix that.)