Jewish Ideas to Change the World

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Dr. Gil Gershon Tivon and Dr. Shirli Regev

The event was co-sponsored by Beth El Phoenix

About the Event:

Compassion, kindness & dignity are the three key ingredients needed in most human communications and relationships. They underline emotional intelligence and imply the presence of our soul and heart in human interactions.

About the Speakers:

Rabbi Dr. Gil Gershon Tivon received his rabbinical ordination from the chief rabbinate of Israel, as well as a Rabbinical judge. He served as a community Rabbi in South Africa, Israel, and Arizona, USA, serving a wide spectrum of religious Jewish observance of all walks of life. He serves as a Rabbi, certified chaplain, and the Spiritual Director at Spiritual Care Hospice. He has a Ph.D. in Holistic Counseling and Pastoral Psychology. He is a certified Mediator, psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and book author.

Dr. Shirli Regev is a mentor, author, hypnotherapy certified therapist (Transformational Therapy), chaplain, and spiritual care provider with 25 years of experience. She holds two PhDs in Holistic Counseling & Pastoral Counseling Psychology. She holds a Master’s degree in Coaching Education (Ohio University) and a Bachelor’s degree in Business (Touro University) and Special Education (Beth Berel Israel). She has written eight books about self-development, spirituality, and growth, some of which she co-authored with Dr. Rabbi Gil Tivon. Today, she is a Holistic Counseling Doctor.

A virtual event presentation by Rabbanit Sharona Halickman

The event was co-sponsored by BMH-BJ

About The Event:

How were women the heroines of the Passover story and what rituals have we taken on to honor them?

Do women traditionally recline at the Seder? What is a Miriam’s cup? Are women obliged to drink the four cups of wine?

About the Speaker:

Sharona holds a BA in Judaic Studies from Stern College and an MS in Jewish Education from Azrieli Graduate School, Yeshiva University. Sharona was the first Orthodox woman to serve as a member of the clergy as the first Congregational Intern and first Madricha Ruchanit at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, NY. After making aliya in 2004, Sharona founded Torat Reva Yerushalayim, a nonprofit organization based in Jerusalem that provides Torah study groups for students of all ages and backgrounds.

A virtual event presentation by Dr. Elaine Leeder

The event was co-sponsored by Temple Emanuel

About the event:

For the last twenty-eight years Elaine Leeder has been working in prisons, first at Elmira Correctional Facility, then San Quentin, and now in prisons all over California. Her teaching, then running self-help groups and now doing Victim/Offender Dialogues, has shown her that there is redemption, remorse, and contrition behind the walls. People can be transformed even in the most oppressive of circumstances.

Leeder will discuss the Jewish values like Teshuvah, Chesed, and Tikkun Olam that deeply inform her work. She will describe the forgiveness she sees in victims (or victims’ families) for some of the most horrendous of crimes like murder, kidnapping, rape, and robbery. Her presentation will focus on real situations that will inspire and touch you in profound ways. Her growth has been deeply informed by these powerful stories.

About the speaker:

Elaine (Sneierson) Leeder is a Professor Emerita of Sociology and the Dean Emerita of the School of Social Sciences at Sonoma State University. Previously she was a Professor at Ithaca College, Ithaca NY. She has 48 years of distinguished accomplishments and experience in academia and public service. Leeder is listed in Who’s Who of America Women, Who’s Who in America, and Who’s Who of American Teachers. Her awards include a National Endowment of the Humanities Fellowship, Visiting Scholar status at the United States Holocaust Museum, outstanding teaching awards, research and travel grants, and numerous awards from student and community agencies. She is a co-founder of the Jewish Studies program and the producer of the Holocaust and Genocide Memorial Grove and the Anne Frank tree installation at Sonoma State University. Leeder has an MSW from Yeshiva University, an MPH from the University of California at Berkeley, and a PhD from Cornell University, and has published six books and numerous articles. Her book The Family in Global Perspective: A Gendered Journey is based on her Semester at Sea voyages in 1992, 1999, and 2013. One of her books My Life with Lifers: Lessons for a Teacher, Humanity Has No Bars describes her work in prisons in NY and CA where she taught, ran groups, and now does victim-offender dialogues. Her exemplary career encompasses roles as professor/teacher, psychotherapist, consultant, author, and advocate for social justice. Visit her at www.elaineleeder.com

A virtual event presentation by Dr. Elias Sacks

The event was co-sponsored by Temple Emanuel

About The Event:

We live in an anti-intellectual age—a time of scientific skepticism, doubts about the value of higher education, and hostility toward many forms of expertise and advanced learning. But anti-intellectualism is not an exclusively modern development; on the contrary, it has a long history in religious traditions, including Judaism, where many figures have cast science, philosophy, and other forms of rigorous intellectual inquiry as irrelevant at best and dangerous at worst. In this session, we will explore the history of Jewish anti-intellectualism, wrestling with diverse Jewish responses to questions such as: Do scientific and philosophical studies have a place in religious life? Do Jews have an obligation to pursue such forms of knowledge, or do these disciplines represent threats to religious practice and belief? And what resources—if any—does the Jewish tradition offer to individuals and communities troubled by anti-intellectual attitudes in the United States and worldwide?

About The Speaker:

Elias Sacks is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he studies Jewish thought, philosophy of religion, Jewish-Christian relations, religious ethics, and religion and politics. He is the author of Moses Mendelssohn’s Living Script: Philosophy, Practice, History, Judaism (2017), as well as articles on medieval and modern thinkers, including Mendelssohn, Moses Maimonides, Baruch Spinoza, Nachman Krochmal, Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, and Jacob Taubes. Previously, Sacks served as Director of The Jewish Publication Society.

A virtual event presentation by Professor Zvi Zohar

The event was co-sponsored by Congregation Or Tzion

About the Event:

In ancient times, some rabbis held that since one is commanded to study Torah day and night (Joshua 1:8), other intellectual realms could be acquired only ‘when it is neither day nor night.’ An exception could be made only for learning a practical profession, enabling one to earn a living. (See, e.g., JT Pe’ah 1:1).

Following in the spirit of those ancient scholars, many East European Rabbis in recent centuries were against secular studies for boys and men and viewed such studies as antithetical to the true Torah. So, too, some rabbis permitted secular studies as a practical concession enabling one to gain a livelihood.

Rabbi Yosef Hayyim was one of the greatest rabbis in the entire world in the half-century leading up to WWI. He was an all-round scholar – Halakhist, Kabbalistic, interpreter of Aggada and Midrash, composer of religious poetry, and famous for his lively and compelling sermons. Nevertheless, many people have not heard of him, as he was a Sephardic/Oriental rabbi who spent his entire life in Baghdad. In addition, many people imagine Sephardic Jews (and rabbis) to be simple, naïve traditionalists – as opposed to the cleverness and sophistication of European/Ashkenazic Jews.

However, it was specifically the ‘Sephardic/Oriental’ Rabbi Yosef Hayyim who strongly advocated that Jewish schools offer a curriculum offering both Torah and ‘general’ studies in tandem, not because general studies are needed to earn a living but because of their inherent intellectual and spiritual religious value.

In this session, we will study (in translation) the original texts of Rabbi Yosef Hayyim on this topic and discuss the significance of his views.

*Source Sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c0bJtwOQ0FWHA-G_cf8wND9XqiOY2Lyt/view?usp=sharing

About the Speaker:

Zvi Zohar is a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. He is the Chauncey Stillman Professor of Sephardic Law and Ethics at Bar-Ilan University, where he teaches in the Faculties of Law and Jewish Studies and is editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Law, Religion and State. At Shalom Hartman Institute, he heads the Alan and Loraine Fischer Family Center for Halakha.

Professor Zohar’s main area of research is the history and development of halakha from the earliest times to the present. He has a special interest in the halakhic writings of Sephardic and Mizrahi rabbis in modern times. Professor Zohar has published more than 100 books and scholarly articles in Hebrew, English, French, and German.

His most recent book in English, Rabbinic Creativity in the Modern Middle East, was published in 2013 by the Hartman Institute’s Kogod Library of Judaic Studies in conjunction with Bloomington Academic Press.