Description
Modern Books of Jewish Thought- Rabbi Jonah Rank | Tuesdays 10:00 AM- 11:30AM CT
The modern Jewish library presents more voices and more genres of writing than did the corpus of Jewish writings in any other period of history. In this course, we will read several books and write personal theological statements that respond to questions that catalyze Jewish dialogue: What is God? What is holy? For what are we truly responsible for in life? What will become of our souls?
Our course will provide the space for both building our relationships with (relatively) new books in Jewish thought and solidifying our own talents, as emerging Jewish leaders, in articulating our own answers to great questions Jews ponder.
Required reading for this course will be based on the following six books:
– Dr. Jay Michaelson, Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Trumpeter, 2009);
– Rabbi Jill Jacobs, There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law and Tradition (Jewish Lights, 2010);
– Dr. Mara Benjamin, The Obligated Self: Maternal Subjectivity and Jewish Thought (Indiana, 2018);
– Professor Chaim N. Saiman, Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law (Princeton, 2018);
– Dr. Tamar Biala (ed.), Dirshuni: Contemporary Women’s Midrash (Brandeis, 2022) (optional to read the original Hebrew edition instead: תמר ביאלה, דרשוני: מדרשי נשים [ידיעות אחרונות, 2009]); and
– Rabbi Dr. Neil Gillman, The Death of Death: Resurrection and Immortality in Jewish Thought (Jewish Lights, 2000).
