Scholar-In-Residence Shabbat Dinner with Rabbi Shai Held

"Why Amazement Matters: Abraham Joshua Heschel's Vision of Theology, Spirituality, and Ethics"

Friday, March 6
Services at 6 PM in the Beck Family Sanctuary
Dinner at 7 PM in Kaplan Auditorium

Rabbi Shai Held is Co-Founder, Dean, and Chair in Jewish Thought at Mechon Hadar, where he directs the Center for Jewish Leadership and Ideas (CJLI).  Before that, he served for six years as Scholar-in-Residence at Kehilat Hadar in New York City, and taught both theology and Halakha at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He also served as Director of Education at Harvard Hillel. A renowned lecturer and educator, Shai is a 2011 recipient of the Covenant Award for excellence in Jewish education. He has taught for synagogues and educational institutions all across the United States and Israel and has served on the faculty of the Wexner Foundation and the Hartman Institute.  Shai has a PhD in religion from Harvard; his main academic interests are in modern Jewish and Christian thought and in the history of Zionism. His book, Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence was published by Indiana University Press in the fall of 2013,  His weekly essays on the Torah are read by thousands of people around the world.

Saturday, March 7
Services begin at 9:30 AM in the Beck Sanctuary
Rabbi Held will give the D’var Torah on Parashat Ki Tissa
Kiddush lunch (free) open to the community at 12 PM
1 PM, Fonberg Chapel
Flipping Self-Worth on its Head: Towards a Jewish Approach to Human Dignity and Value
Judaism has much to say that is surprising and sometimes counter-intuitive about the way we come to self-worth and the source of our dignity. Rabbi Held will lead us on a very personal journey towards a powerful and unmistakably Jewish message about how we value our lives. 

This Scholar-In-Residence shabbat is sponsored in part by a generous grant from the Center for Jewish Education as part of LearningFest 2015.