A Great Adventure in Torah, Sunday, Chol Hamoed Pesach, April 12, 2020
A Great Adventure in Torah, Sunday, Chol Hamoed Pesach, April 12, 2020
9 a.m. Yoel Finkelman "From Bomberg to the Beit Midrash: The How and Why of the Gemara's Page Layout”
Dr. Yoel Finkelman is Curator of the Haim and Hannah Salomon Judaica Collection at the National Library of Israel. Previously a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University and a teacher of Talmud and Jewish Thought at numerous women's Torah study programs in Jerusalem, he is author of Strictly Kosher Reading: Popular Literature and the Condition of Contemporary Orthodoxy and lives with his wife and children in Beit Shemesh. Dr. Finkelman received his PhD in Jewish Thought from the Hebrew University
10 a.m. Gila Fine "Desire in the Midst of Harsh Labor": A Tale of Love and Liberation. Why is the Bible so afraid of love? Who were the lovers who saved the Jewish People in Egypt? And how do the rabbis deconstruct one of the greatest myths of their time?
A reading of Midrash Tanhuma Pekudei 9, through Ovid and Maharal, the Brothers Grimm and Jacques Lacan, George Orwell and Erich Fromm.
Gila Fine is the editor in chief of Maggid Books (Koren Publishers Jerusalem). She is also a teacher of Aggada at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, exploring the stories of the Talmud through philosophy, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, and pop-culture. Gila is the former editor of Azure: Ideas for the Jewish Nation and has previously taught at Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, and the London School of Jewish Studies. Haaretz has called her “a young woman who is on her way to becoming one of the more outstanding Jewish thinkers of the next generation.”
11 a.m. Elisheva Baumgarten "They too were part of the miracle (אף הן היו באותו הנס) - Historical Perspectives on Inclusion and Exclusion of Women from the Passover Ritual”
Professor Elisheva Baumgarten is the Yitzchak Becker Professor for Jewish Studies and teaches medieval history in the department of Jewish History and of History. She is currently the director of the Mandel Scholion research center for humanities at the Hebrew University and directs the Beyond the Elite project funded by the European Research Council. She has published books and articles on the social history of the Jews of Medieval Ashkenaz and is currently completing a book on the social history of medieval Jewish marriage. She has a book forthcoming: Biblical Women and Jewish Daily Life in Medieval Ashkenaz (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021). Baumgarten has held fellowships at the Hebert D. Katz Center at the University of Pennsylvania, at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, the EHESS in Paris and other leading research institutes.
12 p.m. Zvi Leshem “Hasidism and Neo-Hasidism in Interbellum Vienna - Hasidic Emotional Education as a Response to Secularization in Interwar Poland”
Rabbi Dr. Zvi Leshem made Aliyah in 1979. He studied in Yeshivat HaMivtar and was ordained by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. He holds a PhD in Jewish Philosophy from Bar-Ilan University. Zvi served for several decades in higher Torah education in Israel, including as Associate Dean of Nishmat. He also served as a community rabbi in Efrat. Since 2011 he has directed the Geschom Scholem Collection for Kabbalah and Hasidism at the National Library of Israel. Zvi is the author of “Redemptions: Contemporary Hasidic Essays on the Parsha and the Festivals” (2006) as well as numerous academic articles. He currently resides in Jerusalem with his wife Julie.
1 p.m. Channa Lockshin Bob – “Ravi Yitzchak Yaakov Rienes: The Zionist Rabbi You Never Knew You Needed – A Talk Based on a Newly Discovered Collection of Manuscripts”
Channa Lockshin Bob works in the Judaica Collection at the National Library of Israel and is a Ra"m at Midreshet Amudim. She has an MA in Religion from Columbia University and an advanced certificate in Talmud and Halacha from the Drisha Institute.
2 p.m. Shlomo Pill “Kedusha as Deliberation: A Post-Modern Framework for Avodas Hashem in Challenging Times”
Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Pill is a Senior Lecturer at Emory Law School where he teaches and writes about Law and Religion, Jewish Law, and Islamic Law, and Legal Philosophy. He is also a Senior Fellow at Emory’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion, where he directs the Project on Law and Ministry in the United States, is Deputy Director of Law and Judaism, and serves as Managing Editor of canopyforum.org. Rabbi Dr. Pill is also Rosh Beit Midrash of the College Beit Midrash of Atlanta. He attended Yeshiva Far Rockaway; Derech Hatalmud; Lander College/Beis Midrash L’Talmud, where he received semikhah; and was a member of the Atlanta Dayanus Institute. He received his J.D. from Fordham Law School, and L.L.M. and S.J.D. degrees in Law and Religion from Emory Law School. Rabbi Dr. Pill is the author of numerous academic and popular articles, lectures often in universities and communities across the United States and abroad, and his first book, Setting the Table: An Introduction to the Jurisprudence of Rabbi Yechiel Mikhel Epstein’s Arukh Hashulchan is forthcoming from Academic Studies Press this summer
3 p.m. Yoni Zolty “Korban Pesach in Eretz Yisrael through the lens of Sefer Yehoshua"
Yoni Zolty is a rabbinical student at Yeshiva University where he is concurrently pursuing a masters in Bible at Bernard Revel School of Jewish Studies. Previously Yoni attended Yeshivat Har Etzion for 2 years and has a B.A. from Columbia University in English and Physics. Yoni grew up attending Rinat Yisrael, and now lives on the Upper West Side with his wife, Mindy.
[Please have a Tanach handy during this shiur]
4 p.m.Sara Wolkenfeld “Texts & Tech: A Sefaria How-To”
Sara Wolkenfeld is the Chief Learning Officer at Sefaria, a new online database and interface for Jewish texts. She is passionate about Talmud education and expanding Jewish textual knowledge for all. She is also a fellow at the David Hartman Center at the Hartman Institute of North America. Her previous experience includes serving as Director of Education at the Center for Jewish Life - Hillel at Princeton University as part of the OU’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus. She studied Talmud and Jewish Law at various institutions of Jewish learning in Israel and America including Midreshet Lindenbaum, Drisha, Nishmat, and Beit Morasha and speaks on various Jewish topics at synagogues, schools, and university communities. She lives in Chicago with her husband and their five children.
5 p.m. Yehuda Chanales “Leading and Educating for Times of Uncertainty: Lesson from Yetziat Mitzrayim”
Rabbi Yehuda Chanales is Director of Educational Advancement and a member of the Judaic Faculty at the Fuchs Mizrachi School in Beachwood, Ohio. A Teaneck native and former faculty member at TABC and MTA, Rabbi Chanales learned in Yeshivat Har Etzion, received a BA, MEd. and Semicha at Yeshiva University and recently completed a Certificate in Advanced Educational Leadership from Harvard University. He is the recipient of a Wexner Field Fellowship, presented at numerous education conferences and is currently spearheading a groundbreaking partnership with Yeshivat Mekor Chayim in Israel to enhance the culture of personal and religious growth in schools.
This shiur is in memory of our beloved member, Suri Chanales a"h
7:30 p.m. Joshua Teplitsky "Quarantines and Ghettos: Epidemics in Jewish Life in Early Modern Europe"
Joshua Teplitsky is an assistant professor in the Department of History and the Program in Judaic Studies at Stony Brook University. He specializes in the history of the Jews in Europe in the early modern period, 1600-1800. He earned his PhD from New York University's Departments of History and Hebrew & Judaic Studies and has held fellowships at the Oxford Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies of the University of Oxford, the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, the National Library of Israel, and Harvard University. His first book Prince of the Press: How One Collector Built History's Most Enduring and Remarkable Jewish Library was published by Yale University Press in 2019. His current work explores the meeting point of community, culture, and daily life during periods of epidemic in early modern Europe.
8:30 p.m. Dovid Bashevkin “The Resilience of Jewish Identity: Jewish Peoplehood in Halacha and Machshava.”
Dovid Bashevkin is the director of education for NCSY, the youth movement of the Orthodox Union, and an instructor at Yeshiva University, where he teaches courses on public policy, religious crisis, and rabbinic thought. He completed rabbinic ordination at Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, as well as a Master's degree at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies focusing on the thought of Rabbi Zadok of Lublin under the guidance of Dr. Yaakov Elman. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in Public Policy and Management at The New School’s Milano School of International Affairs, focusing on crisis management. He has published two books, Sin·a·gogue: Sin and Failure in Jewish Thought, as well a Hebrew work B’Rogez Rachem Tizkor (trans. In Anger, Remember Mercy). Dovid has been rejected from several prestigious fellowships and awards.
