Harvard Torah

This week Professor Michael Ashley Stein, co-founder and Executive Director of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, and Elsie Tellier '19, whose path with cystic fibrosis through Harvard College, Human Rights Watch, and now law school in Canada is a celebration of life, learning, possibility, and service to community, both join the Harvard Torah conversation – as we read about disqualification of Priests with physical 'blemishes' – to contend with our tradition's legacy regarding Disability.

This week, Sheehan Scarborough, interim director of Harvard College’s Office of BGLTQ Student Life (a.k.a. The QuOffice) and new head of the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, joins the Harvard Torah conversation to help us contend with Leviticus 18:22 and its abominating of homosexual intimate relations. In sharing this conversation, let me point to the QuOffice as a vital resource and center, and also say clearly that Harvard Hillel welcomes and endeavors to support and to be a safe space for students of all genders and sexual orientations.

As we read about the dreaded skin disease Tzara'at, often translated as 'leprosy,' but almost certainly not that – Dr. David Fisher, Chairman of the Department of Dermatology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Professor in Harvard Medical School joins the Harvard Torah conversation along with Ellie Zisblatt '24, who took part in Dr. Fisher's Freshman Seminar on "Skin, Our Largest, Hottest, and Coolest Organ: From Cancer to Cosmetics."

Chef Martin Breslin, Director of Culinary Operations for Harvard University Dining Services, joins incoming student Shira Hoffer for a conversation about food and community – as our scriptures give us a catalog of 'clean' and 'unclean' animals.

This week, as the calendar of Torah readings gives us a Passover hiatus from our weekly portions, we invite you to share your own input and ideas for Harvard Torah through a very brief survey at tinyurl.com/HarvardTorah – as we reflect on the series so far.

This week, the Harvard Torah podcast brings you a special set of resources for your Passover Seder. President Larry Bacow, Provost Alan Garber, Harvard students, and alumni from our Harvard Hillel Board of Directors have recorded brief introductions to the parts of the Seder. These recordings are also available individually here so that you can use them in your own online Seder if you wish.

This week, the Rev. Rita Powel, minister to the Episcopal Community of Harvard, and former captain of the Varsity Softball team at Barnard and Associate Rector for Music at Trinity Church in Copley Square, joins the Harvard Torah conversation with Benjamin Rabinowitz '21, sacred singer, sexton/gabbai, Harvard Jewish Sports Initiative founder, and Levite – to take a stab at the question:  How do you solve a problem like Vayikra/Leviticus?

Architect Moshe Safdie and architecture student Maxwell Lent '20 join in the Harvard Torah conversation, as we read the detailed design of the Tabernacle in the wilderness and consider the spaces we shape, which in turn shape our lives and experiences and even our self-conceptions.

Professor of Economics Ben Friedman, author of the recent "Religion and the Rise of Capitalism," and Andrew Lobel '19 join for a conversation about Wealth. As we come to the construction of the sanctuary on the one hand and the golden calf on the other, a people and its resources and capabilities, and how they are drawn upon and applied, are the topic of discussion.

Irit Aharony, head of Harvard's modern Hebrew language program and Josh Moriarty '21 join in the Harvard Torah conversation to explore the echoes and the ongoing life of sacred terminology from our Torah reading in our own times and in the evolution of the Hebrew language.