Temple Emanuel Hartman Learning Initiative Temple Emanuel of Newton

Our Temple Emanuel Hartman Learning Initiative continues in person in May with teaching by Hartman’s Dr. Elana Stein Hain.

More than six months after October 7, we are still embroiled in a tragic conflict which has unleashed significant antisemitism and questions about the future of both Israel and America. How can we step back and think about what all this means? What moral principles might anchor us right now in thinking about these weighty concerns about the present and about the future?

In the 21st century, Jews in Israel and North America are both powerful and vulnerable, a duality that has only been made starker by the events of Oct. 7th and the subsequent war. While the contemporary expressions of Jewish power and vulnerability have particular and even unique features, Jewish traditions going back to the earliest canonical texts offer possible frameworks for navigating the challenges of this moment.

Join Sara Labaton to examine Purim and Pesach as case studies for how Jewish values and rituals can serve as guideposts as we re-interpret them considering unfolding events.

Find sources here.

Much has been learned since October 7. Micah will join us online live from Jerusalem and offer his candid thoughts on what it will take for Israel to get from its longest war to a new and better future.

Let’s pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and let’s learn from our friend on the ground there.

 

As the Israel-Hamas war enters its 4th month, moral, ethical and philosophical questions continue to dominate the discourse. Our Temple Emanuel Hartman Learning Initiative continues in person in February with Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman, President of the Shalom Hartman Institute, in conversation with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz about the critical questions of this moment, the obligations of Jewish Peoplehood, the impact on Israel-Diaspora relations and the moral considerations related to fighting a just war.


Donniel’s new book, Who Are the Jews – And Who Can We Become, is available for purchase here.

We continue with Rachel Korazim’s second class of Israeli poetry written in the wake of October 7. More voices. More intimacy. More poems that show, with the change of a letter, how Israel and Israelis have changed in this worst chapter of the state’s existence. And yet, somehow, and miraculously, in addition to the notes of loss and rawness, there are also some notes of hope. 

The calamity of October 7th left Israel and the Jewish world in shock and despair. The unimaginable became our reality. As more details of the horror unfold, we find ourselves less and less able to talk about it. The expression most commonly used is םילימ ןיא ein milim – No Words! And yet – there are those who struggle and find words to express pain and anger, despair and abandonment. 

In our sessions with Rachel Korazim we will read and discuss poetry written these very days. The poems are often raw and painful, while at the same time also full of love and even hope.

Join us to explore this moment in Israel through the window of Israeli literature, created in this moment.