Prayer through the Lens of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Apr 1, 2024 By Mychal Springer | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), with its focus on beliefs, thoughts, and feelings, is a powerful modality for helping people in distress. Drawing on the work of David H. Rosmarin’s Spirituality, Religion, and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, we explore how CBT can inform and strengthen individuals’ and communities’ prayer lives. We discuss the connections between different types of prayers—including giving thanks, engaging in dialogue, contemplative prayer, and petitionary prayer—and evidence-based therapeutic approaches to wellbeing.
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Seeing the Unseeable: Images of the Divine in Kabbalistic Texts
Mar 25, 2024
Download Sources With Dr. Eitan Fishbane, Professor of Jewish Thought, JTSand Dr. Marcus Mordecai Schwartz, Ripps Schnitzer Librarian for Special Collections; Assistant Professor, Talmud and Rabbinics, JTS This session is generously sponsored by Drora and Matti Shalev in recognition of JTS’s community learning programs. This session previews the JTS Library’s exhibit opening on March 26, […]
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Mordecai the Jew and Esther the Greek: The Changing Politics of the Book of Esther in Antiquity and Our Times
Mar 18, 2024 By Aaron Koller | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Purim
The Book of Esther is a diaspora book. None of the action takes place in the Land of Israel, and the Temple is never mentioned. One of the most famous—and significant—features of the Hebrew Book of Esther is the absence of any mention of God. But these features that make Diaspora Jews feel comfortable were profoundly disturbing to some of the book’s earliest readers—so disturbing that they actually changed it.
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A Queen in the Tomb of the Kings: An Ancient Monument and its Modern Legacy
Mar 4, 2024 By Sarit Kattan Gribetz | Public Event video | Video Lecture
According to the first-century Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, Queen Helena of Adiabene traveled from her kingdom in northern Mesopotamia to Jerusalem to worship the Jewish God in the temple. She ended up staying in the city, building a palace in the south and a monumental family tomb to the north. This queen was not forgotten: she appears in early Christian writings and rabbinic literature, she stars in medieval Jewish-Christian polemics, and there is a street named after her in contemporary Jerusalem.
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Jewish History and Education through the Lens of JTS’s Rare Manuscripts
Feb 26, 2024 By Yitz Landes | Public Event video | Video Lecture
With Dr. Yitz Landes, Assistant Professor of Rabbinic Literatures and Cultures, JTS
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Between Moscow, Kyiv, and Jerusalem: How The Wars in Ukraine and Gaza Have Changed Russian and Ukrainian Attitudes Toward Israel and Jews
Jan 15, 2024 By David Fishman | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Dr. David Fishman, expert on Ukrainian Jewry, discusses the complex connections between the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and how Russian and Ukrainian attitudes toward Israel and Jews have evolved as a result—both for better and for worse.
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Where Are We Now? Rethinking Exile, Diaspora and Home in Israel and America
Jan 29, 2024 By Arnold M. Eisen | Public Event video | Video Lecture
For many Jews in Israel and America, the war with Hamas has provoked a reconsideration of long-held assumptions about Israel, the Diaspora, and the relationship between the two. This lecture considers whether America can be a true home for Jews or whether is it another instance of exile, albeit different in some respects from all others—and it aska these same questions regarding Israel. We examine a variety of responses to these questions by Americans and Israelis, Zionists and non-Zionists, that sharpen debate and challenge convictions that we hold dear.
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“Zion in the Diaspora”: How Jews Imagined They Lived in Zion Wherever They Actually Lived
Jan 22, 2024 By David C. Kraemer | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Jews through the ages have hoped that one day the Messiah would come, leading them back to Zion. But in the meantime, they lived all over the world, making homes in one diaspora or another. And remarkably, they often spoke of their diaspora homes as “Zion,” a place of redemption long before actual redemption. In this session, we will examine multiple such teachings and traditions including teachings of the great Maharal of Prague (16th century), early Hasidic masters (18th century), and others. We will consider what it means for Jews to imagine themselves in their eternal homes while living abroad
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