Learning to Grow: A Spiritual Guide to Your Year in Israel

Get the most out of your year in Israel. The Israel experience has a natural rhythm, but it is easy to miss the big themes and even bigger opportunities if you don’t have a road map. This book serves as a spiritual and intellectual guide during your year in yeshiva or seminary. Learning to Grow has very immodest ambitions: it is a guide to greatness during your year in Israel and beyond.

Rabbi Gamliel Shmalo is the Educational Director of Meor NYU and teaches Jewish philosophy and law at Yeshiva University. He holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MA from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has also studied at Machon Shlomo, Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh, and Beit Ariel Jerusalem. He has published widely on Jewish themes, and he lectures internationally. Before returning to the US he was on the faculty of Michlalah Jerusalem College and Yeshivat Ohr Yerushalyim for ten years. He and his wife, Mahnaz, have seven children (three sets of twins!), five of whom are certified Scuba divers. Rabbi Shmalo was a founding member of the underwater unit of Israel's ZAKA.