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August 20, 2020 | 30 Av 5780
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NEWS & VIEWS Faculty Issue
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This week's issue focuses on some of our faculty's recent projects. To learn more about our faculty, we invite you to visit our faculty web pages.
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Hebrew College Faculty Member Helps Us Hear the Shofar of Elul
By Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman`14
Faculty Member and Co-Creator of Elul Together
Elul gets short shrift in liberal Jewish America for understandable reasons. It usually begins in August when some congregations go light on programming. Many folks go on vacation, followed immediately by the rush of starting a new school year. All this bustle means it is easy to enter the High Holidays out of breath and unprepared, hearing the shofar for the first time on Rosh Hashanah morning and startling awake.
Instead, Elul gives us the opportunity—begs us, actually—to get personally prepared for the Days of Awe. Journal, make process art, pray, talk to loved ones, schedule a few extra therapy sessions. As the days begin to slide towards the Autumn equinox, we go inwards and inquire.
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Above: Introduction with President Anisfeld | Elul teaching with Rabbi Jordan Schuster`18
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Elul is an opportunity for introspection, reflection, and self growth. Hebrew College has launched the project Elul Together: Preparing for the High Holidays in a Time of Upheaval, spearheaded by Rabbi Shoshana Friedman and Rabbi Suzanne Offit, to bring teachings, music, and the sound of the shofar into homes during this time of isolation. Each Monday of Elul, we will post videos, art, and journal prompts. Watch, listen, write, make art, and share your reflections on social media with #ElulTogether. We’re in it together.
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Associate Professor of Rabbinics Helps Build Bronfman Bonds on Zoom
Each week this summer, Hebrew College Associate Professor of Rabbinics Rabbi Micha’el Rosenberg (above, top row, second from right) and his family invited a cohort of rising high school seniors from around the country to schmooze with them at the dinner table—over Zoom.
The teenagers, recipients of the prestigious Bronfman Fellowship, were supposed to be spending the summer in Israel, engaging in thought-provoking study and conversation with the guidance of a diverse faculty of rabbis and educators. Because of the pandemic, they connected instead for daily sessions on Zoom.
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Hebrew College Professor Asks: What Does Talmud Have To Do with Rabbinic Identity?
Rabbinical School professors think studying Talmud is central to the training of rabbis and to rabbinic identity formation. But is it?
Hebrew College Associate Professor of Rabbinics Rabbi Jane Kanarek (above right) wants to find out.
Thanks to a partnership with the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University, Rabbi Kanarek is applying modern-day data inquiry to the Talmud through a new research project, “Talmud and Rabbinic Formation.”
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Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi: Essential Teachings
An interview with Miller Center Director Rabbi Or Rose about his new book
Who was Zalman Schachter-Shalomi?
Reb Zalman (an informal title he preferred) was one of the most influential and creative Jewish spiritual teachers in recent decades. Born in 1924 into a modern Orthodox family in Poland and raised in Central Europe, young Zalman and his family fled the Nazis and emigrated to the United States in 1941. As a young man, he trained intensively as a HaBaD-Lubavitch rabbi and for a time served as a HaBaD emissary and educator. Beginning in the 1960s, he became increasingly involved in liberal Jewish and interreligious life. Soon, he emerged as one of the leading figures in the Jewish religious counter-cultural movement. He went on to create the Jewish Renewal Movement and taught thousands of people—Jewish and non-Jewish—classical Jewish mystical sources and his contemporary interpretations . . .
Why did you undertake this book project?
I did so because after Reb Zalman’s death in 2014, I missed learning from him and sought a way to remain connected and to think more deeply about his work and influence on my life. Which elements continued to resonate with me? Which might be helpful to others along their spiritual journeys? I was particularly interested in his interreligious work, as this is the central focus of my rabbinate . . . .
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Hebrew College is hosting an online conversation with the book's editors to celebrate the publication on September 3 at 7:30 p.m. Learn more
Rabbi Rose is teaching a Hebrew College community learning course, "In Search of Renewal: The Spiritual Legacy of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi," on Thursdays this fall. Learn more & register
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Hebrew College Rector and renowned Jewish scholar Rabbi Arthur Green is about to offer a first-time online course to help both Jewish and non-Jewish seekers around the world connect with the deep spiritual wisdom of Hasidism. He will be teaching from his new translation of the Hasidic classic, The Light of the Eyes, about to be published by Stanford University Press. The special series begins October 19.
“There are millions of Jews who are descended from the people who heard these sermons, who have no idea of this spiritual tradition. These people had a legacy of very beautiful spiritual teachings. And that legacy has mostly been forgotten,” said Rabbi Green, an expert on Hasidism. “I’m trying to recall them for the great-great-grandchild of the people who first heard these teachings, but also for the many others who may be ‘adopted’ into this family of listeners.”
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Seeking Solace in the Face of Ambiguous LossParashat Shoftim (Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9)
By Rachel Adelman, Professor of Bible, Hebrew College
I, Indeed I am the One Who Comforts You. (Isaiah 51:12)
It has been months since the onset of the global pandemic, and we are still reeling from the seismic consequences. The psychologist, Paula Boss, in an interview with Krista Tippett, has given us conceptual language to name what we are all going through: “ambiguous loss,” a term she coined to characterize mourning that has no closure.
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“PsalmSeason: A Soundtrack for a Time of Upheaval” by Miller Center Director Rabbi Or Rose and Interfaith Youth Core Director Rev. Paul Raushenbush was published on the Wabash Center’s website on August 5.
Rabbinical student Giulia Fleishman was featured in the August 5 MVNews article “Have Faith: One Woman’s Judaism. Giulia Fleishman talks about what being Jewish means to her.”
Rabbi Dan Judson, dean of Graduate Leadership Programs at Hebrew College, was featured in a July 30 JTA News article “The pandemic’s first High Holiday season has synagogues wondering: Will people pay dues?”
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AUGUST & SEPTEMBER ONLINE EVENTS
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi: Essential Teachings Book Launch
With Editor Rabbi Or Rose, Director of the Miller Center for Interreligious Leadership & Learning at Hebrew College
September 3 | 7:30 pm
Learn more & Register
A Virtual Taste of Me'ah
September 8 | 7:30-8:30 pm
Learn more & Register
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