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JUDAIC STUDIES

School

Hebrew College

JTH805

Hasidut II: The Hasidic Writings of Rabbi Kalonymos Shapiro

BTI Category

Semester

Judaic Studies

SP26

Rabbi Kalonymos Shapiro (1889–1943) was a Polish Hasidic Rebbe and educator in the first part of the twentieth century. While today he may be best known for his Holocaust-period writings, his educational innovations are important for their astute deployment of pedagogical insights and mystical/meditative techniques, including visualization, guided imagery, and quieting the mind (hashkatah). Known popularly as the “Piaseczner Rebbe,” his approach might be called “Sensitization to Holiness,” stressing the uniqueness of each individual and the invitation to cultivate one’s personal spiritual signature and path to the Divine.
Our class will read selections from all of Rabbi Shapiro’s major works, including the wartime writings originally published under the title Esh Kodesh; his oeuvre on education and cultivating inner states of Hasidic spirituality; and his lofty and powerful pre-war derashot published under the title Derekh HaMelekh.

Professor

Class Day & Time

Rabbi Dr. Nehemia Polen

See notes

See notes

Grading Option

PF or Audit

Credits

2

Online?

N

Professor Approval Req'd?

N

Prerequisites?

Y

Notes

Tuesdays, February 2nd to May 12th, 9:15 am – 10:45 am

School

Harvard Divinity School

HDS 3682

Modern Jewish Thought

BTI Category

Semester

Judaic Studies

SP26

This course will look at a series of issues that were formative for the Jewish integration and participation in modernity/postmodernity. Special attention will be given to social, political, artistic, and intellectual trends from the Enlightenment to the present. These issues will include rationalism, romanticism, nationalism/Zionism, democracy, gender, war/violence, ritual/law/reform, ecumenism, antisemitism, and environmentalism. We will read from a wide variety of Jewish philosophers, rabbis, political leaders, artists, theologians, and ritualists investigating the context of their work, its engagement with the world and issues of the day and vision for the future of Judaism that emerged from their works.Jointly offered with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as JEWISHST 111.

Professor

Class Day & Time

Magid

T

12:00pm-01:59pm

Grading Option

Letter

Credits

4

Online?

N

Professor Approval Req'd?

N

Prerequisites?

N

Notes

N

School

Hebrew College

EDU850

Foundations Of Jewish Education

BTI Category

Semester

Judaic Studies

SP26

Jewish Education is a practical art that has a theoretical base with application to practice. It has roots in Western industrial schooling as well as traditional pedagogies of teaching and learning in rabbinic antiquity. Recent innovation has drawn upon social, emotional and spiritual modes of learning to redefine Jewish Education for the 21st century. Jewish Education is a vast field including all kinds of schooling, camping, experiential and wilderness learning as well as college campus and adult and community learning. Students will be introduced to relevant theories and key pedagogical methods in the field of Jewish education so that they become familiar with the discourse of the field and can be skilled, innovative and knowledgeable about Jewish teaching and learning. The course incorporates the ways in which ordination students will utilize educational frameworks and approaches in their specific clergy roles.

Professor

Class Day & Time

Rabbi Dr. Michael Shire

See notes

See notes

Grading Option

PF or Audit

Credits

2

Online?

N

Professor Approval Req'd?

Y

Prerequisites?

N

Notes

Mondays, February 2nd to May 12th, 2:30-4:00 pm

School

Harvard Divinity School

HDS 1637

Jewish Mysticism: From the Spanish Expulsion to the New Age

BTI Category

Semester

Judaic Studies

SP26

This course will examine the phenomenon known as Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism, beginning with the Spanish Expulsion (1492) and extending to the present. Its focus will be on major movements of kabbalistic activity from Lurianic Kabbalah, Sabbateanism, Renaissance Kabbalah, Lithuanian Kabbalah, Hasidism, Neo-Hasidism, and Kabbalah in the New Age. The focus will be on changing and developing kabbalistic systems, questions of messianism and redemption, history, heresy, and the impact of modernity and postmodernity on kabbalistic praxis. Larger questions on mystical religion, law, secularism, and the differences between normative religion and spirituality will also be discussed.

Professor

Class Day & Time

Magid

W

01:00pm-02:59pm

Grading Option

Letter, P/F, Audit

Credits

4

Online?

N

Professor Approval Req'd?

N

Prerequisites?

N

Notes

N

School

Harvard Divinity School

HDS 2424

American Judaism

BTI Category

Semester

Judaic Studies

SP26

How have American Jews engaged with Judaism and indeed how have they defined it? How has Judaism, understood as a religious system shaped both the interactions between Jews and between Jews and other Americans? The course will examine these issues through a variety of lenses, including, but not limited to: ordinary Jewish women and men, the clergy, the infrastructure of religious institutions, the American state, and other Americans, organized as they were through their denominations and churches.We will be looking at this over the long arc of historical time, going back to the mid-seventeenth century and moving into the present and the course will be framed chronologically. Throughout we will be asking how Jews defined religion and how they saw it and how it differed from other forms of Jewish identification and belonging. How did this change over time and what issues, particularly those involving religious authority and (or versus) the will of the laity, persisted, albeit in different form? It will become clear that not all Jews conceived of Judaism in the same ways and the course will explore the constant tug between inner Jewish diversity and quests for unity and conformity. We will in addition be concerned with how being defined as members of a religious, or faith, community shaped American Jews’ interactions with other Americans, predominantly Christian.

Professor

Class Day & Time

Diner

M

12:00pm-01:59pm

Grading Option

Letter

Credits

4

Online?

N

Professor Approval Req'd?

N

Prerequisites?

N

Notes

N

School

Hebrew College

HIS510

Zionism

BTI Category

Semester

Judaic Studies

SP26

In this seminar we will explore the foundational ideas and events of the Zionist movement from its beginnings through the creation of the state. The course will begin by placing Zionism within the wider canvass of late 19th century European history. We will then move through Zionist history in a roughly chronological fashion, looking at the major thinkers of the movement – Herzl, Ahad Ha-am, Kook, Jabotinsky – while also covering the major political events – The Zionist Congresses, the Balfour Declaration, The British Mandate, etc. While this course is not designed to focus solely on the conflict with the Palestinians, the relationship between Zionism and the Arab communities within and around Palestine will be one of our primary concerns.

Professor

Class Day & Time

Rabbi Dr. Dan Judson

See notes

See notes

Grading Option

PF or Audit

Credits

1

Online?

N

Professor Approval Req'd?

Y

Prerequisites?

N

Notes

Tuesday-Thursday, January 13-15, 9:30 am – 4:00 pm

School

Hebrew College

JTH838

Modern Jewish Thought

BTI Category

Semester

Judaic Studies

SP26

This course will explore the writings of major Jewish thinkers living in the modern era and place them in the context of their historical setting. The class will focus on the various ways these thinkers –from Mendelssohn to Buber –understood the dynamic relationship between inherited tradition and modern conceptions of religious life.

Professor

Class Day & Time

Rabbi Dr. Dan Judson

See notes

See notes

Grading Option

PF or Audit

Credits

2

Online?

N

Professor Approval Req'd?

Y

Prerequisites?

N

Notes

Mondays, February 2nd to May 12th, 2:30-4:00 pm

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