Modeled on the Daf Yomi program of reading a page of Talmud every day, this class discusses several brief readings from the Talmud each week. All texts are in English, with explanatory text by Rabbi Aden Steinsaltz. Prospective students meet with Rabbi Jennifer prior to joining, and are asked to make a commitment to participate regularly. The texts for each week are emailed the night before class.
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Each week we will discuss the Torah portion for the following Shabbat. This class is designed for those who are new to Torah study, although more advanced students are welcome. All text and conversation will be in English. Students can use any copy of the Jewish Bible, with or without commentary.
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The Psalms of the Bible speak to us in ways that no other poetry does. These prayer-poems are timeless cries from the soul. And for millennia, Jews and Christians alike have turned to them for solace and comfort, seeking guidance, meaning, and hope. Our Jewish liturgy uses psalms to enhance our prayers in every service, weekdays, Shabbat, and holidays. “From sorrow to joy, despair to ecstasy, fear to wonder, awe and amazement; the psalms included in the Jewish liturgy span an immense emotional and spiritual terrain,” wrote Miriyam Glazer. This class will take us through the 150 poems that make up the psalms, looking at their structure, their moods and messages, and their relationship to our own lives. No knowledge of Hebrew is necessary – all readings are in English, and participants may use any translation of the psalms that they wish.
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Class Instructor: Herb Levine.
Dates: November 1, 8, 15, 22 & 29
Time: 1:00 – 2:30 PM
Course Description: This course will give students the basic information that a student would gain from a Jewish Studies class at a university. No prior knowledge is needed. From close readings of selected texts, the class will demonstrate how the Torah was composed long after the events narrated in it, by a variety of authors with differing points of view. In four classes, we will explore these points of view and what was of concern to each. The final week of the class will look at strategies for how we can continue to find value in the Torah as a book of wisdom that speaks across the generations to us as contemporary Jews.
Herb Levine loves teaching Jewish Studies to adults. He was trained as a Ph.D. in English and American Literature and taught courses in the Bible as literature and its impact on later literature. He previously taught Mussar as a KH adult education offering.
Class Instructor: David Steinberg
Date: November 19, 2021 – One day only
Time: 10:00 AM
Course Description: Hanukkah – What happened, why and its importance in Jewish history. This will draw on the Apocrypha (1 and 2 Macabees.)
David Steinberg has had a major interest in biblical studies and in the history of the Hebrew language. He has written 2 major pieces on the history of the Hebrew language as well as shorter pieces on the influence of Hellenistic culture on Judaism and on Josephus. All of these are available on his web site http://www.houseofdavid.ca/.
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Class Instructor: Marcel Infeld
Class time: Fridays, 10:00 am – 11:15 am
Class dates: December 3, 2021 — January 21, 2022
Course Description: This course surveys diverse views on Jewish issues, articulated by American Jewish theologians, rabbis, academics, intellectuals, feminists and others.
The course is based on a recently published book, which we will use as our textbook: American Jewish Thought Since 1934: Writings on Identity, Engagement, and Belief, edited by Michael Marmur and David Ellenson, 2020, Brandeis University Press, 300 pp. Available on Amazon: Paperback $26/Kindle: $24.70
The book contains 79 selections from 70 authors and is organized into seven sections. We will cover one section per week as follows:
1) December 3, 2021: God
2) December 10, 2021: Revelation and Commandment
3) December 17, 2021: Spirituality
4) December 24, 2021: Hermeneutics and Politics
5) January 7, 2022: The Holocaust and Israel
6) January 14, 2022: Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality
7) January 21, 2022: Peoplehood
Marcel has been involved in adult Jewish education for many years. He has led classes in Tanach, Hebrew reading, and Torah cantillation, among others. As a Holocaust survivor (born in Belgium) and resident of Israel 1945-1950, Marcel experienced two epochal events in Jewish history that are major topics in this course. Marcel was raised in an ultra-orthodox household, attended Yeshivas in Brooklyn and Israel, and studied briefly for the rabbinate. More recently, he was president of a Reconstructionist congregation in Arlington, Virginia. Professionally Marcel has degrees in science and public health, and served as an HMO director and health care consultant. He and his wife of 35 years, Donna Infeld, have one daughter, Amanda.
Class Instructor: Aaron Rand
Dates: December 6, 2021
Time: 1:00 – 2:30 PM
Course Description:
During the last few years, I have come to realize the importance of Jews in architecture. Many of the most important works of modern architecture have been built for or designed by Jews.
I went to architectural school and became an architect in the 1960’s. The architects I will talk about crossed my path and affected my life in some way. All were visionaries and changed the direction of
architecture.
I don’t have an answer if Jewish architects are different from other architects. The one thing I see is that they were able to reinvent themselves.
Aaron Rand: Aaron attended Pratt Institute 1959-1961.
Graduated from City College of New York, B.S, and B.Arch.
Five years’ experience working on commercial and institutional architecture for several architects. Licensed to practice architecture New York State. Taught at Dutchess Community College for 30 years, Retired as Professor and Chairman of the Architecture and Construction Technologies program. In private architectural practice for over 30 years designing and constructing energy efficient and passive solar residences.
Class Instructor: To Be Determined
Dates: February 7, 14, 21, 28, March 7, 14, 2022
Time: 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Course Description:
When we study the period of the American Wild West 1849-1909, we might conclude that it was the third Golden Age of the Jewish People. (The first was The Golden Age of King Solomon–950c B.C.E. and the second was The Golden Age of Spain-1200-1300 C.E.)
It was a time when Jews adapted to new and strange environments, drawing upon their intelligence, Yiddisheh kop, creativity, hard work ethic, and Jewish values.During this period, Jews found themselves in a totally free, capitalistic society. They flourished as merchants at all levels: peddlers, importers, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers. There were also Jewish cowboys and cattlemen.
The bedrock of our modern thriving market system was created by Jewish merchants in cities, towns, and villages throughout the West. They came with merchandise, in wagons and ships. They brought anything they thought would sell in this vast new territory; they had literally nothing with which to start. Mostly immigrants from Europe, new opportunities opened up in the Old West without the presence of pervasive anti-Semitism. Indeed, America was the goldeneh medina.
This course will study Jewish settlement in each of the western states. Who were the pioneers and what was their legacy? How did they set up Jewish communities, deal with Shabbat, kashrut, synagogue, clergy, and religious education? Were there any Jewish gunslingers or Indian Chiefs? You bet there were!
This course is open to everyone regardless of background or personal orientation.
Class Instructor: David Steinberg
Dates: March 21, 28, April 4, 11, 2022
Time: 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Course Description:
James Kugel is a brilliant fearless modern/historical scholar of the Hebrew Bible who is convinced of the incompatibility of the results of this type of scholarship with the classical Jewish understanding of the Bible. Nevertheless, he remains a committed and practicing Orthodox Jew. In his excellent book How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now he goes through the Hebrew Bible contrasting and comparing the methods and conclusions of modern scholarship with traditional methods, understandings and conclusions.
From a review of How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now So, how to read the Bible? Kugel proposes two different ways. First, he shows us the Bible as it was read by the “ancient interpreters,” writers who lived in the period a couple of hundred years before and after the birth of Jesus, even as the Bible itself was being codified. Their way of reading the Bible — their assumption of its inerrancy, their belief that scripture teaches moral lessons, and their faith in divine authorship — is the way many of us still read it today. Second, Kugel leads us through the Bible as it’s understood by modern scholars, who for the past 150 years have used archaeology, linguistics, history, anthropology and all the other tools of science to excavate the truth about the Good Book.
The individual classes will be planned to allow participatory discussion.
David Steinberg has had a major interest in biblical studies and in the history of the Hebrew language. He has written 2 major pieces on the history of the Hebrew language as well as shorter pieces on the influence of Hellenistic culture on Judaism and on Josephus. All of these are available on his web site http://www.houseofdavid.ca/.
Class Instructor: David Steinberg
Dates: April 1 and 8, 2022
Time: 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Course Description:
Like much of Judaism the Passover started out as something quite different.
In its earliest beginnings the Passover started as an agricultural spring festival (form 1), was later historicized by associating it with the Exodus (form 2 probably after 722 BCE). With the Deuteronomic Reform it became a sacrificial festival held only in Jerusalem (form 3 – late 7th c. BCE).
Because of the time and cost involved, except for those living near Jerusalem, few men and only a minuscule number of the poor, women and children could have participated. Finally, after the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE), the rabbis transmuted the sacrificial services into vestigial mentions of them in the prayers. However, Passover was treated differently.
Uniquely in Rabbinic Judaism, the rabbis turned a temple/sacrificial festival into the seder, a home centered, partially reenacted substitute which takes its form from a Greco-Roman secular feast the symposium.
We will follow these changes and examine its development from the form found in the Mishnah c. 200 CE to its present traditional form. It is noteworthy, that the Haggadah is formed entirely of texts written for other purposes and re-contextualized.
David Steinberg has had a major interest in biblical studies and in the history of the Hebrew language. He has written 2 major pieces on the history of the Hebrew language as well as shorter pieces on the influence of Hellenistic culture on Judaism and on Josephus. All of these are available on his web site http://www.houseofdavid.ca/.
St. Wilfred’s Episcopal Church Campus, Kol HaNeshama Sanctuary
3773 Wilkinson Road, Sarasota, FL 34233
