JTS in the Berkshires Summer 2026

Rabbi Ayelet Cohen, Pearl Resnick Dean of The Rabbinical School and Dean of the Division of Religious Leadership and Dr. Shira Billet, Assistant Professor of Jewish Thought and Ethics, JTS will teach in the Berkshires this summer. 

Join JTS scholars in Lenox, Massachusetts, for inspiring learning that illuminates the Jewish past and shapes the Jewish future.  

Two Sessions  
Fridays, July 10 and August 7, 2026 
11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.   

Shakespeare & Company  
Elayne P. Bernstein Theater  
70 Kemble Street  
Lenox, Massachusetts  

Tickets: $25/one session or $40/both sessions   

Presented in partnership with Knesset Israel and in cooperation with the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires. Supported in part by a grant from the Harold Grinspoon Foundation. 

Session I

Cultivating Resilience and Joy in Difficult Times 

With Rabbi Ayelet Cohen, Pearl Resnick Dean of The Rabbinical School and Dean of the Division of Religious Leadership, JTS

Friday, July 10, 2026 

Session II

A Jewish Ethics of Creativity for a Technological Age 

With Dr. Shira Billet, Assistant Professor of Jewish Thought and Ethics, JTS 

Friday, August 7, 2026 

The age of Artificial Intelligence forces us to ask old questions with new urgency—questions about the power, limits, dangers, and opportunities of human creativity—that lie at the nexus of ethics, religion, and science. Dr. Shira Billet will explore the timely wisdom for our technological age that is found in classical Jewish philosophical reflection on the cosmos and the place of the human being in the divinely created world order, presenting a starting point for a Jewish ethics of creativity in the age of AI. 

Please contact Tani Schwartz-Herman at 212-678-8996 or tanischwartz@jtsa.edu with questions about this program. 

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