Restoring Balance: Exploring an Ancient Paradigm for Moving Beyond Our Mistakes
Sep 14, 2020 By Julia Andelman | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement—yet the concept of atonement itself is rarely explored. The text of the mahzor (High Holiday prayerbook) asks God to “forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement”—but how is atonement distinct from forgiveness and pardon? Through an examination of biblical and rabbinic sources, we will learn how our ancestors interpreted the concept of kapparah, atonement, and the great power it held in their understanding of how human beings—flawed in our very nature—can carry on in the world after we have sinned.
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From Self-Interest to Self-Surrender: Confronting the Challenges of Prayer
Aug 31, 2020 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
Why do many modern Jews find tefillah so difficult? We’ll grapple with this question by exploring attitudes toward prayer among thinkers including Rambam and Heschel, and we’ll contrast assumptions about what makes for a genuine and meaningful prayer in Jewish tradition and in American culture. In particular, we’ll discuss our expectations of what happens when we pray and the possibilities that emerge when we don’t put ourselves at the center of the prayer experience. Along the way, we will touch on Thomas Aquinas, Quakerism, Thomas Merton and yoga, and the light they shed on traditional Jewish conceptions of prayer.
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Seeking and Offering Forgiveness: What are We Doing and How Do We Do It?
Aug 24, 2020 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
Forgiveness is at the heart of the High Holy Days season, yet it is far from clear what we mean by this term. Employing insights from rabbinic sources, mussar literature and psychology, we will think out loud about what we hope to achieve and how to achieve it as we seek forgiveness for ourselves and are asked to forgive others.
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God of the Faithful, God of the Faithless: Belief and Doubt in Prayer
Aug 17, 2020 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
Do we need “faith” in order to pray? Can synagogue services be worthwhile and meaningful even if we’re not sure what we believe? We are hardly the first generation to struggle with contradictions among our intellectual beliefs, traditional Jewish liturgy, and the act of prayer. What do biblical and rabbinic texts about prayer, and the prayerbook itself, teach us about these conflicts, and how can they help us connect to prayer even in times of doubt or faithlessness?
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Faith, Forgiveness and Prayer: Finding Meaning in the Days of Awe
Aug 31, 2020 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
A series of online classes with JTS faculty and staff
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