91快播

The Torah鈥檚 Take on Happiness

Nov 2, 2020 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Moses鈥� final speech concludes with a declaration of the happiness of being a Jew: 鈥淗appy are you, O Israel!鈥滲ut does the Torah describe any individual as happy?Whilethe pursuit ofhappiness, as expressed in the Torah and its interpretations? Is the American ideal of happiness a Jewish concept at all?

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 91快播 and Professor Dr. Michael Tilly of T眉bingen 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.

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 whichhasidicspiritual 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鈥榮 immanent presence in our lives.

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鈥攅ncounterswith serious illness,the loss of loved ones,advancing age,orevenbringingchildren into our lives鈥攚eturnto lawyers to write or revise our wills.Writing awill is an opportunity toconsider our priorities aswe 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 readby your descendants,perhaps even at your funeral,about your values? What would you say? How does Judaism inform these values?

Generosity, Gratitude, and Faith: Rav Eliyahu Dessler鈥檚 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? ForRavEliyahu Dessler (1892-1953, England/Israel),love,faith,empathy,and social bondingareconsequencesof generosity鈥攏ot its causes.In this session, we will discussRavDessler鈥檚 insights and his vision for living meaningfully.

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 constitutesa鈥淟ife of Meaning.鈥滲ut no one researched this question more completely than the biblical author, Kohelet (Ecclesiastes). In this sessionwe review his reportinEcclesiastesch.2and evaluate his conclusions concerning what truly makes a life 鈥渨ell-lived.鈥�

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鈥攜et the concept of atonement itself is rarely explored. The text of themahzor(High Holiday prayerbook) asks God to 鈥渇orgive us, pardon us, grant usatonement鈥濃�攂ut how is atonement distinct from forgiveness and pardon?Through an examination of biblical and rabbinic sources, we will learn how our ancestorsinterpretedthe concept ofkapparah,atonement, and the great power it held in their understanding ofhowhuman beings鈥攆lawed in our very nature鈥攃ancarry on in theworldafter we have sinned.

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 91快播 faculty and staff

Isaac Unbound: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam read the Offering of Abraham鈥檚 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 鈥淎brahamic religions.鈥� 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.

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 findtefillahso difficult? We鈥檒l grapple with this question by exploring attitudes toward prayer among thinkers including Rambam and Heschel, and we鈥檒l contrast assumptions about what makes for a genuine and meaningful prayer in Jewish tradition and in American culture.In particular, we鈥檒ldiscuss our expectations of what happens when we pray and the possibilities that emerge when we don鈥檛 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.

Covid, Triage, and Jewish Ethics

Aug 25, 2020 By 91快播 | Public Event video

In the coming months we hope that an effective Covid vaccine will be approved, but it may take months to produce mass quantities. Who should receive priority status for the early batches? Front line health workers? People with high risk factorss? The elderly? Politicians? 

The ethical dilemma of triage can be divisive. What does Judaism teach about deciding who shall live and who shall die? A distinguished panel explores these timely issues. 

Seeking and Offering Forgiveness: What are We Doing and How Do We Do It?

Aug 24, 2020 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur

Forgiveness is at the heart of the High Holy Days season, yet it is far from clear what we mean by this term. Employing insights from rabbinic sources,mussarliterature and psychology, we will think out loud about what we hope to achieve and how to achieve it as we seek forgiveness for ourselves and are asked to forgive others.

God of the Faithful, God of the Faithless: Belief and Doubt in Prayer

Aug 17, 2020 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur

Do we need 鈥渇aith鈥� in order to pray? Can synagogue services be worthwhile and meaningful even if we鈥檙e not sure what we believe? We are hardly the first generation to struggle with contradictions among our intellectual beliefs, traditional Jewish liturgy, and the act of prayer. What do biblical and rabbinic texts about prayer, and theprayerbookitself, teach us about these conflicts, and how can they help us connect to prayer even in times of doubt or faithlessness?

Times of Crisis and Possibility

Aug 10, 2020 By 91快播 | Public Event video | Video Lecture

A series of online classes exploring pivotal moments in the Jewish experience with 91快播 faculty and fellows.

First Failures: Falling Apart and Starting Over in the Book of Genesis

Aug 10, 2020 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Video Lecture

The first book of the Torah is filled with stories of crisis, brokenness, disappointments, and failure, both human and Divine. What religiousmeaning can we derive from the Torah鈥檚 focus on failure rather than success? Through a close look at some of its key narratives, we will mine the Book of Genesis for strategies for living through difficulttimes, and as the grounding of a hopeful and resilient theology.

Halakhic Responses to Past Pandemics

Aug 3, 2020 By Daniel Nevins | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Our ancestors have contended with outbreaks of disease over the centuries, and rabbis have often responded with daring halakhic activism. We will focus in particular on the case of Rabbi Haim Yosef David Azulai, who served at as the rabbinic leader of Leghorn (Livorno) in Italy, the home of a quarantine facility.

Israel鈥檚 Prophets as Innovators During Crisis

Jul 27, 2020 By Amy Kalmanofsky | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Prophets were social and political change-makers and theological mavericks. They offered bold responses to grave challenges that enabled their communities to survive crisis and that paved the way for Judaism. This session explores how prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah offered innovation in the face of destruction.

American Jews and Race: Past, Present, and (Charting a) Future

Jul 21, 2020 By 91快播 | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Our country currently faces a reckoning with structural racism. As Jews, we have faith that our tradition represents a moral voice for justice and equality. Yet we also recognize that we have often failed to fully heed that voice and so must confront the enduring influence of racial discrimination and white privilege in our community. 91快播’s Hendel Center for Ethics and Justice presents a discussion with two leading thinkers on the issue.

The End of Days in Isaiah: Coming Soon (and Still Waiting)

Jul 20, 2020 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Public Event video | Video Lecture

The prophet Isaiah is famous for his descriptions of the aftertimes, a period of world peace that will follow a cataclysmic crisis. Several of these passages are well-known, whether from haftarot, from Handel鈥檚 Messiah, or from the inscription across the street from the United Nations. The details and the fascinating synthesis of universalism and particularism in his vision of the future, however, are less widely understood. We explore a few of these sections to discover precisely what Isaiah had in mind, and why his vision, so long delayed, remains compelling and influential.

The Promise and Perils of Revolution: Jewish Life in the Soviet Union After 1917

Jul 13, 2020 By David Fishman | Public Event video | Video Lecture

The 1917 Russian revolution and its aftermath were a time of both promise and crisis for the Jews of Russia, whoconstituted the largest Jewish community in the world at the time. The Soviet Union was the first state to outlaw antisemitism, and more than half of the first Soviet cabinet consisted of Jews. Yet the new regime mercilessly persecuted organized religion and outlawed all non-Communist political movements, including Zionism. Focusing on the years between the revolution and the Second World War, this session explores the diversity of Jewish responses to sweeping political and social change.