Who Is in Charge? Philosophy of Halakhah Through the Eyes of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik and Rabbi Moshe Feinstein

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz has a conversation with former professional basketball player Dan Grunfeld about the book he published in 2022, By the Grace of the Game about the journey from Auschwitz to the NBA.

Dan Grunfeld is a former professional basketball player, an accomplished writer, and a proud graduate of Stanford University. An Academic All-American and All-Conference basketball selection at Stanford, Dan played professionally for eight seasons in top leagues around the world, including in Germany, Spain, and Israel. Dan’s writing has been published more than 40 times in media outlets such as Sports Illustrated, The Jerusalem Post, and NBC News. 

Dan earned his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2017 and lives with his wife and son in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works in venture capital.

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Dr. Martin Lockshin

The event was co-sponsored by BMH-BJ

About the Event: 

The Bible is full of commandments that say “do x” or “don’t do y,” almost always without specifying who is being addressed.  When the Bible says not to mistreat widows and orphans, was it addressing judges? Or the wealthy? Or all of us?

About the Speaker: 

Martin Lockshin is a University Professor Emeritus at York University and lives in Jerusalem. He received his Ph.D. in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University and his rabbinic ordination in Israel while studying in Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav Kook. Among Lockshin’s publications is his four-volume translation and annotation of Rashbam’s commentary on the Torah.

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Dr. Jeremiah Unterman

About the Event: 

The polytheism of the ancient Near East conceived of the gods as natural beings who needed sacrifices and libations to physically sustain them. The ethical monotheism of the Torah created a revolution against paganism which would ultimately change forever the concept of religion. One of the key ways in which the Jewish prophets shaped this revolution was their unique understanding of the relationship between ethics and ritual.

About the Speaker: 

Since 2013, Rabbi Dr. Jeremiah Unterman has been a Resident Scholar at the Herzl Institute and the Academic Editor of The Koren Tanakh of the Land of Israel (since 2017). From 2000-2006, he was the Director of the Association of Modern Orthodox Day Schools and Yeshiva High Schools, and Adjunct Professor of Bible at Yeshiva University. He also served as Executive Director of the Toronto Board of Jewish Education and Vice-President for Education of the UJA Federation of Toronto, as well as Director of Education of the Hillel Academy of Ottawa. From 1992-1997, he was Executive Director of the Commission on Jewish Education and Director of Boston’s Hebrew College Hartford Branch, Connecticut.  He was the Director and Associate Professor of the Jewish Studies Program at Barry University (Miami, Florida) from 1983 to 1992.  He received his B.A. in Hebraic Studies from Rutgers University, an M.A. in Bible from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Ph.D. in the Judaica Program of the Near Eastern Studies Department at the University of California, Berkeley. He received semicha through private studies in Israel. 

He has authored two books, Justice for All: How the Jewish Bible Revolutionized Ethics, and From Repentance to Redemption: Jeremiah’s Thought in Transition, and over 100 articles in scholarly publications in the U.S. and Israel. He has lectured frequently at scholarly conferences in the United States and Israel, such as the World Congress of Jewish Studies, the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, and the annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies, and at numerous universities in the U.S. and Israel. 

He is a citizen of both the United States and Israel and served in the Israel Defense Forces. He lives in Jerusalem, Israel, with his wonderful wife, Judy.

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yankolwiz interviews Rabbi Sharon Brous, founding and Senior Rabbi of IKAR 

Sharon Brous is the founding and senior rabbi of IKAR, a trail-blazing Jewish community based in Los Angeles. Built in 2004, IKAR has grown into a diverse, dynamic, multi-generational community, one of the fastest-growing and most influential in the country. Brous has been named #1 Most Influential Rabbi in the U.S. by Newsweek/The Daily Beast. She blessed both President Obama and President Biden at their National Inaugural Prayer Services, and her TED Talk “Reclaiming Religion” has been viewed 1.5 million times. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. A New Yorker at heart, she’s grown deeply enamored of the sunshine and promise in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband and children.

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 and curiosity, Brous argues, are essential to both personal healing and social change. This is how we reawaken our humanity.

About the Speaker: 

Sharon Brous is the founding and senior rabbi of IKAR, a trail-blazing Jewish community based in Los Angeles. Built-in 2004, IKAR has grown into a diverse, dynamic, multi-generational community, one of the fastest-growing and most influential in the country. Brous has been named #1 Most Influential Rabbi in the U.S. by Newsweek/The Daily Beast. She blessed both President Obama and President Biden at their National Inaugural Prayer Services, and her TED Talk “Reclaiming Religion” has been viewed 1.5 million times. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post. A New Yorker at heart, she’s grown deeply enamored of the sunshine and promise in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband and children.

The event was presented in loving memory of Dr. Sherman Minkoff

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 Gentile sinners), and then “all Israel will be saved” (Rom. 11:26). In this class we will trace some of the developments in Dr. Nanos’ lifetime journey, as a Jew, to read and then re-read the texts in Romans 11, wherein Paul sets out his view of his fellow Jews and discover alternatives for translating and interpreting these texts.

About the Speaker: 

Mark D. Nanos is a widely known lecturer and author of many books and articles. He received his PhD from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and an Honorary PhD from the University of Lund, Sweden. His book, The Mystery of Romans, won The National Jewish Book Award in Jewish-Christian Relations in 1996 and he is a co-founder of the “Paul within Judaism” section at the Society for Biblical Literature.

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz interviews Rabbi Daniel Askenazi, Chief Rabbi of Barcelona, Spain.

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 experiences. We will focus on classical Jewish texts about distinctive Jewish dress to launch a broad conversation about the ethics of passing and outing oneself and when and how we wish to display our Jewishness or other identities to the broader world when we do not, and why.

About the Speaker: 

Rav Sarah Mulhern is a Rabbi, educator, and community builder. She serves as the Rabbi of Silverstein Base Lincoln Park, opening her home and her heart to young adults in Chicago. She passionately believes that Torah matters and that Judaism can enrich human life and better society. 

Rav Sarah is also a nationally-regarded Torah educator, frequently teaching in a wide variety of Jewish adult education settings, particularly on topics of ethics, gender, and Jewish practice. As a rabbi, some of her areas of focus include grief support, feminist and queer niddah education, and crafting joyful halachic egalitarian life cycle rituals. She is deeply committed to inspiring traditional prayer and is a passionate shaliach tzibur. 

Rav Sarah was ordained by the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College, where she also earned a Master's in Jewish Education, and received private rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Daniel Landes. She is an alumna of Brandeis University, Yeshivat Hadar, Pardes Institute, Drisha Institute, Beit Midrash Har El, the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, and the David Hartman Center Fellowship. She can be reached at sarahemulhern@gmail.com or @Rav_Sarah.

*Source Sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ROWtjcrXYoV_Gxzz-l184CLig_xVkAxv/view

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 most (in)famous legal formulations: An Eye for an Eye. A careful literary reading of this law in the Torah can reveal hidden layers of meaning.

About the Speaker: 

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 studied for several years in yeshivot in Israel before heading off to rabbinical school at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. He was ordained there in 2007 and returned to Northern California, where he became the Senior Jewish Educator at Berkeley Hillel. He was part of the founding team at Kevah, a nonprofit specializing in Adult Jewish Education, where he worked from 2012 to 2018 and developed the Kevah Teaching Fellowship. He has served on the faculty of Berkeley Law, the Wexner Heritage Program, Reboot, and the BINA Secular Yeshiva, and also taught courses at Pardes, SVARA, The Hartman Institute, AJR, and HUC. Rabbi Kasher is a teacher of nearly all forms of classical Jewish literature, but his greatest passion is Torah commentary, and he spent five years producing the weekly ParshaNut blog and podcast exploring the riches of the genre. 

In 2018, he began work as an Associate Rabbi at IKAR, a non-denominational spiritual community in Los Angeles, where he teaches a weekly parashah class and has a new parashah podcast called Best Book Ever. He published an essay, ‘Eating Our Way from Justice to Holiness,’ in Kashrut and Jewish Food Ethics (Academic Studies Press, 2019), completed a translation of Avot d’Rabbi Natan for Sefaria, and is the author of ParshaNut: 54 Journeys into the World of Torah Commentary.

*Source Sheet: https://smallpdf.com/file#s=8b6eadb7-9fe7-4d78-9019-ce3b204d4c51

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 studied for several years in yeshivot in Israel before heading to rabbinical school at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. He was ordained there in 2007 and returned to Northern California, where he became the Senior Jewish Educator at Berkeley Hillel. He was part of the founding team at Kevah, a nonprofit specializing in Adult Jewish Education, where he worked from 2012 to 2018 and developed the Kevah Teaching Fellowship. He has served on the faculty of Berkeley Law, the Wexner Heritage Program, Reboot, and the BINA Secular Yeshiva and taught courses at Pardes, SVARA, The Hartman Institute, AJR, and HUC. Rabbi Kasher is a teacher of nearly all forms of classical Jewish literature, but his greatest passion is Torah commentary, and he spent five years producing the weekly ParshaNut blog and podcast exploring the riches of the genre. 

In 2018, he began work as an Associate Rabbi at IKAR, a non-denominational spiritual community in Los Angeles, where he teaches a weekly parashah class and has a new parashah podcast called Best Book Ever. He published an essay, ‘Eating Our Way from Justice to Holiness,’ in Kashrut and Jewish Food Ethics (Academic Studies Press, 2019), completed a translation of Avot d’Rabbi Natan for Sefaria, and is the author of ParshaNut: 54 Journeys into the World of Torah Commentary.