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Communings of the Spirit, Vol. III
Dec 7, 2020 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video
A discussion with Dr. Mel Scult: Mordecai M. Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionism, and the rabbi who initiated the first Bat Mitzvah, also produced the longest Jewish diary on record. In 27 volumes, running from 1913 to 1978, Kaplan shares with us not only his reaction to the great events of his time, but also his very personal thoughts on every aspect of religion and Jewish life. In this volume, editor and Kaplan biographer Mel Scult presents Kaplan contemplating the momentous events of the 1940s.
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Trauma and Testimony in an Oversharing Society
Dec 7, 2020 By Edna Friedberg | Public Event video | Video Lecture
The pandemic has forced us to live much of our lives online. But what happens when experiences that used to be private and intimate are exposed to the glare of public scrutiny? How is the impact of experience changed by retelling it, and does sharing our experiences make them more meaningful? This is a discussion of how refugees from war-torn Europe were recast as “Holocaust survivors” and how trauma morphs when repackaged for broader consumption. The session will include pioneering early audio and film recordings of survivors as young people in the 1940s and 50s.
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Bound in the Bond of Life
Dec 1, 2020 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video
A discussion with author Dr. Beth Kissileff: On October 27, 2018, three congregations were holding their morning Shabbat services at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood when a lone gunman entered the building and opened fire. He killed 11 people and injured six more in the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in American history. The story made international headlines for weeks following the shooting, but Pittsburgh and the local Jewish community could not simply move on when the news cycle did.
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The Certainty of Uncertainty
Nov 30, 2020 By Alan Cooper | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Psalm 84, quoted in the Havdalah service, assures us that human felicity arises out of trust in God. But trust is hard to come by, and felicity seems remote in times of duress. In this session we will examine biblical texts that acknowledge the challenges of doubt and uncertainty and offer ways of meeting those trials with hope, faith, and trust.
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The Real Lives of Jews in the Traditional World
Nov 23, 2020 By David C. Kraemer | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Many of us know the “official version” of the lives of Jews through the ages, according to which Jews were pious and thoroughly immersed in Jewish life—a life apart. But many of the rare materials in the JTS Library offer a different picture, according to which Jews lived in the world with their neighbors, experiencing life first as human beings and then as Jews. Dr. David Kraemer shares evidence from the Library’s great collections, surprising and even shocking you with a corrective to commonly repeated historical “truths.”
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The Wholeness of a Broken Heart
Nov 23, 2020 By Mychal Springer | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Life’s challenges raise up the reality of human vulnerability. Too often, people experience the heartbreak of suffering. In this session we will explore the paradoxical teaching of the Kotzker Rebbe that “there is nothing more whole than a broken heart.”
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A Dialogue of Love: Interreligious Cooperation and Global Well-Being
Nov 16, 2020 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video
Professor Azza Karam, secretary general of Religions for Peace International, discusses how multifaith alliances can further peace and well-being in our fractured world.
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Tales of the Holy Mysticat
Nov 12, 2020 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video
In Tales of the Holy Mysticat, Rabbi Adler, a professor of Modern Jewish Thought and one of our generation’s most profoundly creative scholars, uses a collection of whimsical stories, interspersed with cleverly drawn black-and-white illustrations, to provide unique insights into Jewish mysticism. And it’s all portrayed through the life of her cat. In this online conversation, Rabbi Adler discusses how, just as the Holy Mysticat became Adler’s teacher, so too can the Holy Mysticat teach us all.
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Remix Judaism
Nov 9, 2020 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video
Relying on modern Jewish sociology, in addition to narratives running the gamut from the Talmud to timely interviews and personal stories, Remix Judaism shows how a Jewish tradition open to personal meaning can substantially deepen one’s connection to Jewish tradition.
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Nurturing Character, Community, and Meaning-Making Through Jewish Education
Nov 9, 2020 By Jeffrey Kress | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Even as we are zooming forward into a new, Covid-altered educational landscape, there are goals of Jewish education—whether in schools, camps, home, or other settings—that are enduring. In this session we will look at Jewish education through the lenses of character, community, and meaning-making to provide context for current discussions of online and hybrid learning, and to expand our thinking about the goals and processes of Jewish learning.
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The Torah’s Take on Happiness
Nov 2, 2020 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Moses’ final speech concludes with a declaration of the happiness of being a Jew: “Happy are you, O Israel!” But does the Torah describe any individual as happy? While the pursuit of happiness, as expressed in the Torah and its interpretations? Is the American ideal of happiness a Jewish concept at all?
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Judaism (Religions of Humanity series)
Oct 26, 2020 By Burton L. Visotzky | Public Event video
How do you portray 2,000 years of Judaism in only three volumes? That’s what co-editors Dr. Burton L. Visotzky of JTS and Professor Dr. Michael Tilly of Tübingen University discuss at this celebration of Judaism. Their new three-volume compendium offers a global view of Jewish history, an overview of Jewish literature, and insight into Jewish culture and modernity.
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Spiritual Meaning and Inspiration in Hasidic Teaching
Oct 26, 2020 By Eitan Fishbane | Public Event video | Video Lecture
In this session we explore several powerful examples in which hasidic spiritual masters read the Hebrew Bible figuratively in order to often playfully and brilliantly convey deep spiritual insights about the nature of life, of the world, and of God‘s immanent presence in our lives.
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Gifts of Wisdom: The Historical Traditions and Values of the Ethical Will
Oct 19, 2020 By Stefanie B. Siegmund | Public Event video | Video Lecture
At pivotal moments that make us think about death—encounters with serious illness, the loss of loved ones, advancing age, or even bringing children into our lives—we turn to lawyers to write or revise our wills. Writing a will is an opportunity to consider our priorities as we plan to distribute our estates to the people, organizations, and causes that we care about. What if you also tried to write a letter that would be read by your descendants, perhaps even at your funeral, about your values? What would you say? How does Judaism inform these values?
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Generosity, Gratitude, and Faith: Rav Eliyahu Dessler’s Integrative Approach to Creating a Meaningful Life
Oct 12, 2020 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Public Event video | Video Lecture
What is the relationship between our level of generosity and our beliefs, our attitudes, and our actions? For Rav Eliyahu Dessler (1892-1953, England/Israel), love, faith, empathy, and social bonding are consequences of generosity—not its causes. In this session, we will discuss Rav Dessler’s insights and his vision for living meaningfully.
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Anticipating Death and Finding Satisfaction in Life: The Profound Wisdom of Kohelet
Oct 5, 2020 By David C. Kraemer | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Wise people will have different views about what constitutes a “Life of Meaning.” But no one researched this question more completely than the biblical author, Kohelet (Ecclesiastes). In this session we review his report in Ecclesiastes ch. 2 and evaluate his conclusions concerning what truly makes a life “well-lived.”
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Restoring Balance: Exploring an Ancient Paradigm for Moving Beyond Our Mistakes
Sep 14, 2020 By Julia Andelman | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement—yet the concept of atonement itself is rarely explored. The text of the mahzor (High Holiday prayerbook) asks God to “forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement”—but how is atonement distinct from forgiveness and pardon? Through an examination of biblical and rabbinic sources, we will learn how our ancestors interpreted the concept of kapparah, atonement, and the great power it held in their understanding of how human beings—flawed in our very nature—can carry on in the world after we have sinned.
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Faith, Forgiveness and Prayer: Finding Meaning in the Days of Awe
Aug 31, 2020 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
A series of online classes with JTS faculty and staff
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Isaac Unbound: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam read the Offering of Abraham’s Beloved Son
Aug 31, 2020 By Burton L. Visotzky | Public Event video | Video Lecture
By reading texts from the New Testament, Church Fathers, and Quran we can see how Christians and Muslims read this seminal story. A medieval midrash shows how Rabbis responded to the interpretations of the other “Abrahamic religions.” The class concludes with a discussion of the problem with the ideology of martyrdom that all three religions read in the harrowing tale of Genesis 22.
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From Self-Interest to Self-Surrender: Confronting the Challenges of Prayer
Aug 31, 2020 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
Why do many modern Jews find tefillah so difficult? We’ll grapple with this question by exploring attitudes toward prayer among thinkers including Rambam and Heschel, and we’ll contrast assumptions about what makes for a genuine and meaningful prayer in Jewish tradition and in American culture. In particular, we’ll discuss our expectations of what happens when we pray and the possibilities that emerge when we don’t put ourselves at the center of the prayer experience. Along the way, we will touch on Thomas Aquinas, Quakerism, Thomas Merton and yoga, and the light they shed on traditional Jewish conceptions of prayer.
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