David Hartman: Spiritual Opportunities and Dangers of Halakha, Lecture 2

David Hartman, founding President of Shalom Hartman Institute, will focus on the clash of modernity and traditional Judaism in his fall2009 series of lectures, which began in October and will run through December 2009. This is the second lecture in the series.

Shalom Hartman Institute 2009 – Who We Are

The Shalom Hartman Institute is pleased to announce a new organizational structure built around three centers focusing on our core areas of advanced Judaic Studies research, educational initiatives in Israel, and North American leadership development. This new structure is designed to position Hartman Institute for growth and expansion in Israel and in North America, to better serve existing constituencies, whether they are rabbis, teachers, IDF officers or students, and to enhance efforts to reach out to additional individuals and organizations. The Institute’s three new centers are the Kogod Research Center for Contemporary Jewish Thought, the Education Center for Israeli-Jewish Identity, and the Center for North American Leadership Initiatives. Each center comprises a number of departments and programs sharply focused on the participants and services they provide to thousands in Israel and North America.

Hartman Institute publications catalogue

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Hartrman Institute in the news on Goldstone, Hobbes, and more

Hartman Institute ideas, scholars (including David Hartman), and programs (Be’eri) have been in the news a great deal recently. Click here to read about the Goldstone report and the Israeli army, radical rabbis, educating Israelis about their Judaism, and more.

Countering extremist Israeli rabbis who urge soldiers not to help evacuate illegal settlements

I don’t usually mention the same column by Donniel Hartman twice, but clearly this issue is one that is not only not going away, it is heating up: In articles such as this one and this one, we are learning more about the rabbis who are preaching disobedience of orders that may occur in the IDF to participate in evacuations of illegal outposts and settlements and those who are struggling with the issue.

Donniel Hartman, in his latest column, referenced here and also below on this blog, has come out forcefully and clearly as to why this just cannot happen. And Donniel doesn’t just criticize, he, as usual, puts the matter into context and calls on all of Israeli society to engage in the deep and complex debate of how the Jewish religion must be intertwined – or not – with the political and civil life of the Jewish state.

Israel needs army without divisions

Donniel Hartman writes about how the Israeli army must limit the reach of the army rabbis, and how Religious Zionists must declare their loyalty to the State of Israel over the religious aspects of the Land of Israel:

A soldier may thus rationalize that if the army cannot command him to violate the Shabbat, and such a command is deemed illegal, it is even more evident to him that the army cannot command him to dismantle a settlement, as settling the land of Israel is deemed even more important than observance of Shabbat.
…
I therefore suggest the following practical direction: not only must the army be free from pursuing internal political debates, so too it must be free from any religious discourse outside of the private ritual practices of its soldiers. Every soldier must be told upfront and recognize that he or she must follow unquestioningly the orders of the civilian government of Israel and the laws that it enacts, and the military chain of command so long as those laws are legal….

Anyone serving in the army must swear allegiance to this principle. If they cannot, then they must be designated as conscientious objectors who are not allowed to serve. Religious Zionism and religious communities have thus a critical decision to make: If they believe that their commitment to the holiness of the Land of Israel is so central that it must override all other concerns and that the State has value only to the extent that it brings more Jews to live in more of the land of Israel, then they must declare up front their conscientious objection to serving in the army, and go the path of the ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jews.

Click here to read the full article.

Say hi to Hartman Institute at the UJC General Assembly in Washington, Nov. 8-10, 2009

President Obama to appear at Jewish Communities General Assembly, Washington, DC, Nov. 9, 2009

Shalom Hartman Institute will be at the United Jewish Communities (soon to be Jewish Federations of North America) annual General Assembly from November 8-10, 2009, in Washington, D.C. (Booth 311). First, and foremost, I invite you to stop by for a chat. I plan to have some goodies from Israel with me to entice people – if the marketing materials and flyers, and books, and magazines, and videos featuring Hartman Institute scholars aren’t enough!

As I said on Twitter (@alanabbey) I will give an extra piece of whatever I end up bringing if you tell me you heard about it on this blog or my Twitter page.

But seriously, I will be there to present the amazing programs of the Hartman Institute and to offer our new DVD Series of lectures on “Crisis and Leadership,” which is a special program now available for purchase by synagogues, community centers, adult education programs, Hillels, and private individuals tailored for adult education courses,  private study, leadership development and more.

By the way, Hartman Institute is not the ONLY draw at the GA. President Obama is scheduled to make his first speech to a Jewish group since becoming POTUS 44, as is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Sensitive to the times, Netanyahu – who, unlike Obama, does not have his own airplane, is flying “economy” to the U.S. Obama will take the short drive from the White House to the conference hotel in NW Washington.

Hartman Institute scholars, ideas, friends in the news

A student who attended the Religion and the Challenge of Modernity conference at Grand Valley State University in Michigan earlier this month had this to say about Donniel Hartman’s presentation there:

Donniel Hartman, the first lecturer of the day at this conference, did a very good job not only presenting his thoughts, but introducing a theme that could be common in almost every religion. We all have our challenges with modernity, and it creates multiple identities. When we have these multiple identities, we tend to lose sight of who we really are. Years ago, if you referred to someone as Jewish, you knew everything you needed to know about them. Now-a-days this isn’t necessarily the case. People now have more complex identities.

David Hartman: Spiritual Opportunities and Dangers of Halakha, Lecture 1

David Hartman, founding President of Shalom Hartman Institute, will focus on the clash of modernity and traditional Judaism in his fall2009 series of lectures, which began in October and will run through December 2009. This is the first lecture in the series.

Global warming warning straddles Dead Sea, three peoples (see the cool picture)

350 at the Dead Sea

This isn’t directly germane to the Shalom Hartman Institute, but I haven’t seen this picked up by any Jewish or Israeli media today, so I thought I would post it: Groups of Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian environmentalists gathered in the Dead Sea basin in three groups on Saturday, October 24, 2009, to participate in a global event designed to call attention to global warming. The project was the brainstorm of the author Bill McKibben, and has taken shape under the name 350.org. The local participants were organized by Friends of the Earth Middle East.

Can you guess which group made which number?