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?
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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.
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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 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�
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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