Finding Meaning in the Book of Psalms

Date: Apr 12, 2018 - Apr 26, 2018

Time: noon - 1:00 p.m.

Sponsor: Online Learning | Online Learning for Clergy

Location: Online

Category: Clergy: Continuing Ed Online Learning

LEARN ONLINE WITH JTS

This class is geared toward rabbis and others with advanced text skills. Texts will be studied in the original Hebrew.

The idea of meditating on, reciting, or even learning psalms strikes many contemporary Jews as somehow foreign or odd. Yet the Rabbis’ love of the psalms, which they quote constantly in midrashic literature and which they placed prominently in Jewish liturgy, testifies to the spiritual resources lurking in this collection of ancient Israelite poetry. We will examine three psalms from the liturgy in their original context to access their power for today’s Jews.

Three Thursdays (updated from earlier publicity)
April 12, 19, and 26, 2018
12:00–1:00 p.m. ET

REGISTER

Dr. Benjamin D. Sommer joined The Jewish Theological Seminary faculty as professor of Bible in July 2008. Previously, he served as director of the Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies at Northwestern University, where he had taught since 1994. Dr. Sommer has been a fellow at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Tikvah Center for Jewish Law and Civilization at the New York University School of Law, and the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He has served as a visiting faculty member in the Department of Bible of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at the Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas. He has received fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the Yad Hanadiv/Berakha Foundation.

Cost: $60 (includes all curricular materials)

Space is limited. Advance registration required.

For more information, contact Lynn Feinman at lyfeinman@jtsa.edu or (212) 678-8821.