For the first time in its history, Shalom Hartman Institute Rabbinic Leadership alumni will gather for an Alumni Study Retreat. The inaugural Rabbinic Leadership Institute Alumni Study Retreat will be held from January 23-26, 2011, at the Steven Breuer Conference Center in Malibu, California. Rabbinic Alumni of the first three RLI cohorts, representing nearly a decade of our intensive rabbinic leadership program, will gather to study the topic of Covenant and its contemporary challenges and applications with SHI faculty members Prof. Israel Knohl and Rabbi Dr. Rachel Sabath Beit-Halachmi.
Text study will focus on Biblical, Rabbinic and Modern interpretations of covenant and covenant theology. One day of the retreat will be open to all rabbinic colleagues in the area of Southern California. Highlights will be a learning session with Prof. Knohl; a session on the Hartman Institute’s newest project, Engaging Israel: Foundations for a New Relationship; and a preview of a learning program for rabbis and their communities which seeks to lift and shift the discourse on Israel and the relationship of North American Jews to Israel.
Rabbis will also enjoy a visit to a local winery and a viewing of a new Israeli film portraying Israeli society.
He will be at Temple Emanu-El in the evening. Here is the title of his talk: “The Art, Psychology and Politics of the Four Children.” Click here for details. The synagogue’s website says registration is full. But maybe, if you tell them you read about the event on the Hartman Institute blog they will squeeze you in.
Holy Living in Human Bodies: 2010 Edward Bronfman Family Foundation Annual Lecture at Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem, Israel. Part of the 2010 International Theology Conference, January 2010. Speakers were Dr. Melila Hellner-Eshed, Shalom Hartman Institute, Prof. Rusmir Mahmutehaji, University of Sarajevo, President, International Forum Bosnia, and Rev. David M. Neuhaus, SJ, Vicar for the Hebrew and Russian-speaking Catholic communities in Israel, Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Opening remarks were made by Rabbi Prof. David Hartman. The moderator was Dr. Hami Verbin, Shalom Hartman Institute.
The Hartman Institute gratefully acknowledges the Bronfman family for supporting this annual initiative.
The Shalom Hartman Institute is pleased to invite the public to attend The Edward Bronfman Family Foundation Annual Lecture on Religious Pluralism, “Holy Living in Human Bodies,” Tuesday, February 16, 2010, at 20:00 (8 PM).
Speakers are Dr. Melila Hellner-Eshed, Shalom Hartman Institute, Prof. Rusmir Mahmutćehajić, University of Sarajevo, President, International Forum Bosnia, and Rev. David M. Neuhaus, SJ, Vicar for the Hebrew and Russian-speaking Catholic communities in Israel, Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Opening remarks will be made by Rabbi Prof. David Hartman. The moderator is Dr. Hami Verbin, Shalom Hartman Institute. For more information, contact Brenda Yagod, +972-2-567-5320.
The lecture is affiliated with the Institute’s annual International Theology Conference, which is being held, February 14-18, 2010. Click here for more information on the 2010 conference.
The invitation-only conference will address questions such as: What does it mean to be made “in God’s image” in these mortal bodies? What moral implications arise from a serious engagement with the animal nature in which our rational self-awareness dwells?
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. (more…)
David Hartman will focus on the clash of modernity and traditional Judaism in his fall 2009 public lectures, the Fred and Della Worms Lecture Series, which is titled, “The Spiritual Opportunities and Dangers of Halakhah: Readings from Rosenzweig, Buber, Soloveitchik, Berkovits, Heschel, and Leibowitz.”
The Winter-Spring semester will be titled the Jay and Hadasa Pomrenze Lecture Series, and the topic will be: “Talmudic and Traditional Perspectives on the Legal and Moral Status of Women, Converts and Non-Jews.”
8 rabbis who have come to the summertime Rabbinic Torah Study Seminar at the Institute in Jerusalem for the last 10 years or more were given the honor of being named Senior Fellows for 10 years of participation in the RTS program: Robert Alpert, Howard Hoffman, Kenneth Emert, Frank Fischer, Pat Fischer, Garson Herzfeld, Chaim Seidler-Feller, Ned Soltz.
Summertime programs at Shalom Hartman Institute are well under way. We have hundreds of rabbis, community leaders, and others here for seminars, havruta study, lectures, tours, and more. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat is on tap tonight for a private appearance. Israeli Education Minister Gidon Sa’ar was here the other night.
So, with visitors, we also have bloggers, of course. So far, I’ve found twothree:
I have no idea where Plato and Socrates engaged in their famous dialogues and ruminations, but if they were around today, I’m guessing they would love the physical space on a hill at The Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem….
Hartman Institute classes are not for people with a short attention span. They take an idea and dive deeply into the texts. In this first class (with Donniel Hartman), I felt like I was at a baseball game—stretches of slow, scholarly build punctuated by short bursts of intensity, such as:
“Moral failing is not the failure to see good and bad, but failure to see the other face.”
“When Hillel says, ‘What is hateful to you don’t do unto others’, he is telling you that you already know the deepest and most important knowledge you will need to live an ethical life: How you like to be treated.”
“Jewish ethics are not exclusive to Judaism. Beware of anything that claims to be unique.”
This was not a sermon. It was a class, interrupted by moments of passion—a passion that sought to empower us.
“We are not empty vessels, just waiting to be filled”, the rabbi told us.
Hartman was taking a mushy message—do good and be good—and teaching it with an intellectual and emotional edge, one that valued human dignity and the innate Godliness of each individual.
So, after years of hearing so much about the Hartman Institute, I had finally attended my first class. It was a lot to mull over. Luckily, when you leave a Hartman class, you get to walk out onto “Plato’s Courtyard” (my phrase), where there are plenty of opportunities to sit on Jerusalem stones and mull over the teachings with students and teachers.
Maybe they should have everyone wear white robes and sandals. That would really get us in the mood to ponder the big ideas of life and Judaism, and apply them to real life—which is what the Institute aspires to do.
His follow-up column the next day was about a lecture by David Hartman:
If I had come to Israel just for the two hours I spent on Friday morning listening to Rabbi David Hartman, founder of the Institute, it would have been worth the trip….
So these were the three motifs that made Shabbat a transcending moment: I am God your Creator, I am God your liberator, and I am your God forever.
But here was the kicker: by creating and liberating us, and being there forever, God gives us the strength to do our own creating and liberating.
It was as if the rabbi was saying to each of us: We are both Jewish, we both love our tradition, but I am not you and you are not me.
The highlight today was Rabbi Hartman’s evening talk. He is a genuinely wise elder statesman, and an iconoclast who is observantly Orthodox but has real respect for the contributions of the other, liberal movements in Judaism. He is cantankerous, brilliant, brutally honest, funny, charming and, above all, heimish.
I found another one, blogger B.G.S. Magarik, although it seems he was just a one-time visitor. He also saw David Hartman’s lecture (soon available online) and wrote about it on his blog Loisaida Times:
I spent the evening at the Shalom Hartman Center, and heard Rabbi David Hartman lecture, in a rare and brilliant appearance. He spoke on Contingency in Jewish texts, focusing on the Joseph story, with frequent and wonderful detours into his life, personal and intellectual relationships, contemporary jewish practice, and current Israeli politics.
It was a very moving lecture; he told wonderful stories about his mother, shared his pluralistic and progressive vision for the Jewish people (defending egalitarianism, the Reform movement, and taking a page from Obama’s book in speaking of the need for realistic hope), and confronted his mortality and physical pain.
Robert P. Kogod Lecture, June 30, 2009: Role of Religion in Public Space
The Robert P. Kogod Annual Lecture will be given Tuesday, June 30, 2009, at 8 pm, at Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem on the subject of “The Role of Religion in the Public Space: Israeli and American Perspectives.” Speakers are Prof. William Galston, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, and Prof. Ruth Gavison, the Hebrew University. Moderator is Prof. Jonathan Malino, Guilford College.
The lecture, the capstone event to the Hartman Institute’s biannual Philosophy Conference, is free and open to the public.
The theme of the conference, the 23rd Philosophy Conference held at the Institute, is: The Public/Private Distinction. Click here to see a list of participants.
Four lectures about Serving God in the Jewish tradition by leading scholars of Jewish studies from the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Israel, pluralistic Jewish learning and leadership training. Soon on the Shalom Hartman Institute website.
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