Jewish Ideas to Change the World

A hybrid event (in-person and virtual) by Rabbi Sharon Brous The event was co-hosted by Temple Solel About the Event:  The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World , makes the case that in an era of loneliness, social alienation, and ideological extremism, our deepest spiritual work is finding our way to one other—in celebration, sorrow, and solidarity. Relationships of care...

A virtual event presentation by Dr. Mark Nanos The event was co-sponsored by Congregation Or Tzion  About the Event:  Most interpretations of Paul understand the apostle to argue that Jews who did not share their faith in Jesus Christ had lost their original covenant standing. Yet, at the same time, they maintain that there will come a time when Jews will believe (based on the same terms as Gentil...

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz interviews Rabbi Daniel Askenazi, Chief Rabbi of Barcelona, Spain. ★ Support this podcast ★

A virtual event presentation by Rav Sarah Mulhern The event was co-sponsored by Temple Chai & Temple Emanuel         About the Event:  Is there a value to being publicly identifiable as Jewish? Is there a value to looking more like our non-Jewish neighbors? In this session, we will explore how Jewish texts have engaged with these questions over time, and interrogate our instincts and experienc...

A hybrid event (in-person and virtual) by Rabbi David Kasher The event was co-sponsored by Temple Chai About the Event:  We often divide the Torah into two categories: narrative and law. But the laws of the Torah themselves are often written in poetic language, inviting us to use the tools of literary criticism to analyze them. That poetic quality is prominently on display in one of the Torah’s mo...

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz engages in an enlightening conversation with Rabbi David Kasher, exploring the divinity of the Torah. Rabbi David Kasher serves as the Director of Hadar West Coast. He grew up bouncing back and forth between Berkeley and Brooklyn, hippies and Hassidim – and has been trying to synthesize these two worlds ever since. After graduating from Wesleyan University in 1998, he s...

A virtual event presentation by Dr. Adele Reinhartz The event was co-sponsored by BMH-BJ About the Event:  This talk will explore some of the issues about the portrayal of Jews and Judaism in the Fourth Gospel. In analyzing this very important topic, it is always necessary to have a dual focus, with one eye on what the Gospel itself says, and the other on what scholars have said. This talk will ha...

A hybrid event (in-person and virtual) by Dr. Bernice Lerner About the Event:  In mid-April 1945, a small group of liberators entered Bergen-Belsen, where they found tens of thousands of unburied dead and 60,000 “displaced persons,” of whom 25,000 were in dire need of medical attention. What principles guided their leaders’ excruciating choices? What ethical questions consumed the men as they ende...

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Dr. Aubrey Glazer About the Event:  Merest Breath is a provocative and contemporary translation with two new commentaries on Qohelet (Ecclesiastes). These eclectic commentaries on one of the strangest books of the Hebrew Bible open up an ancient wisdom text that dares to address theological skepticism of the present. Understanding Qohelet as resisting biblical...

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Shlomo Levin The event was co-sponsored by Congregation Or Tzion About the event:   Numerous times the Torah commands us to help those in need. Is this also a statement of human rights? In this session we’ll ask whether giving tzedakah is a fulfillment of human rights values, or whether human rights are limited to abstract freedoms and charity is something we...

A virtual event presentation by Maggid Jim Brulé The event was co-sponsored by Temple Emanual About the Event:  Stories have the power to entertain, inform, enlighten, and motivate. They also have the power to heal. Maggid Brulé will weave together traditional Jewish stories from a variety of cultures, interspersed with reflections on the reasons that stories affect us so deeply and opportunities...

A virtual event presentation by Dr. David Sanders The event was co-sponsored by BMH-BJ About the Event:  “A dream not interpreted is like a letter not read.” This quote is not from Freud or Jung but from the Zohar, the classic medieval Kabbalah text connecting dreams and our spiritual growth. We spend an average of 9 years dreaming. What do our dreams reflect to us of our experience? How are dream...

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Avidan Freedman The event was co-sponsored by Congregation Or Tzion About the Event:  Trends in Israeli society today highlight the crucial choice that the Jewish state is faced with as the Jewish people face the moral challenge of power. More and more, “Jewish Power” (now also the name of a political party in Israel) reflects an approach to this challenge tha...

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Micah Streiffer The event was co-sponsored by Temple Emanuel  About the Event:  Think your beliefs about God are “out there?“ Think again! In this session, we will delve into the unexpected views of two of Judaism’s greatest thinkers – Maimonides and Spinoza. Both rebel against the “traditional” notion of God found in the prayerbook, but in very different ways...

A virtual event presentation by Rabbanit Leah Sarna *Source Sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A4EbgCH5S44QjGS2p0OD_UzefcieYvHZ/view The event was co-sponsred by BMH-BJ About the Event:  On Hannukah, we light candles and commemorate a time “when the evil Greek kingdom rose against Your people Israel.” Those who love studying Greek philosophy and literature must ask ourselves some big question...

A virtual event presentation by Melanie Gruenwald The event was co-hosted by Beth El Phoenix  About the Event:  “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” ~ Leonard Cohen Please join us for this workshop on Kabbalistic and contemporary sources and conversations about light, darkness, hope, grief, and resilience. About the Speaker:  Executive Director of Kabbalah Experience Mel...

A virtual, five-part series presented by Professor Eitan P. Fishbane *Source Sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14JGleBQE8nwYtoRTtm2v36G8I4wckb_Y/view About the event:  In what would become the legendary kabbalistic hilltop town of Tzfat in the 1500s—the birthplace of such timeless texts as Lekha Dodi and Yedid Nefesh ; a location whose larger-than-life figures included such luminaries as Rabb...

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Zachary Truboff The event was co-sponsored by BMH-BJ  About the Event:  One of the ongoing debates of modern Jewish life is the extent to which human beings or God should be given the final say on religious questions of ultimate importance. For many, this dilemma is seen as an either/or, and one must choose a side, but a look at two of orthodoxy’s most influen...

A virtual, five-part series presented by Professor Eitan P. Fishbane *Source Sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qzW3jl5I1ZWug2YIpQ_JAcouT1g51LRe/view About the event:  In what would become the legendary kabbalistic hilltop town of Tzfat in the 1500s—the birthplace of such timeless texts as Lekha Dodi and Yedid Nefesh ; a location whose larger-than-life figures included such luminaries as Rabb...

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Ian Pear About the Event:  In a continuation of Rabbi Pear’s first class, we will discuss Rav Goren’s attempts to create a military ethic in the entire Israeli army. About the Speaker:  Rabbi Chaim (Ian) Pear, a Rabbi, lawyer, and social activist living in Jerusalem, is the founder of Shir Hadash, a popular Jerusalem Synagogue, Educational Institute, and Commu...

A virtual, five-part series presented by Professor Eitan P. Fishbane About the event:  In what would become the legendary kabbalistic hilltop town of Tzfat in the 1500s—the birthplace of such timeless texts as Lekha Dodi and Yedid Nefesh ; a location whose larger-than-life figures included such luminaries as Rabbi Yosef Karo, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, Rabbi Yitzhak Luria (the ARI), and many others— t...

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Ian Pear About the Event: This text-based class will focus on the nature of Israel’s army. It will look at the halachot of being a soldier in a Diaspora army, based on the Chafetz Chaim’s Machane Yisrael, and compare that to being an individual soldier in the Israeli army today. About the Speaker: Rabbi Chaim (Ian) Pear, a Rabbi, lawyer and social activist liv...

A virtual event presentation by Avi Posen The event was co-sponsored by Temple Emanuel and Temple Israel About the Event:  Why is it that even post-Holocaust, Jews experience a large percentage of the world’s hate crimes, despite being less than 0.2% of the world’s population? That’s because the Holocaust wasn’t an antisemitic exception — it was the culmination of years of religious, scientific, c...

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Andy Kahn About the Event: As world temperatures continue to rise, and weather patterns, ocean levels, and wildfires continue to shift, change, and intensify, it is easy to feel unmoored and disconnected. The Sacred Earth: Jewish Perspectives on our Planet , seeks to provide new ways to approach each other and the earth around us to keep us engaged, connected,...

A virtual, five-part series presented by Professor Eitan P. Fishbane About the event:  In what would become the legendary kabbalistic hilltop town of Tzfat in the 1500s—the birthplace of such timeless texts as Lekha Dodi and Yedid Nefesh ; a location whose larger-than-life figures included such luminaries as Rabbi Yosef Karo, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, Rabbi Yitzhak Luria (the ARI), and many others— t...