Jewish Quest

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Rabbi Adam Zagoria-Moffet discusses Jacob's extra-human qualities and asks whether he is really worthy of bequeathing his name to the children of Israel. 

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Rabbi Rebecca Rosenthal shares the importance of Jacob's epiphany. 

Rabbi Rebecca Rosenthal joined Central Synagogue in the summer of 2015 as the Director of Youth & Family Education. Prior to Central, Rabbi Rosenthal was the Director of Children and Family Education at IKAR, a nationally recognized, innovative spiritual community in Los Angeles. While at IKAR, she reimagined and redesigned the religious school, supervised IKAR’s Early Childhood Center from its creation to present, and created the IKAR teen program. She also taught in IKAR’s adult education program and participated in pulpit and pastoral duties. Before IKAR, Rabbi Rosenthal was the Director of Education at Congregation B’nai Zion in El Paso, Texas, and the Youth & Family Shabbat and Holidays Coordinator at B’nai Jeshurun in New York City. She has been involved in numerous national conversations about the future of congregational education, including the Conservative Moment’s Task Force on Congregational Education and the ReFrame Initiative, to examine and implement experiential education in a religious school setting.   

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Adam Zagoria-Moffet is Director of the Louis Jacobs Foundation and the rabbi of St. Albans Masorti Synagogue. He was ordained from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York where he also received an MA in Jewish Thought, studying the political philosophy of Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag (Ba’al haSulam). He grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, and has lived in Minnesota, New York, and Israel before moving to the UK. He co-edited the first Hebrew/English egalitarian Sepharadi siddur and runs the independent publisher Izzun Books. He often teaches about Sepharadi halakhah and culture as well as mysticism, mythology and ethics.  

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Rabbi Dr Daniel Zucker asks just who was Betuel?

Rabbi Daniel M. Zucker, D.D. is the rabbi of Temple Hatikvah (Flanders, NJ) and President and CEO of Americans for Democracy in the Middle-East. He holds an M.A. in Hebrew Letters, a Doctor of Divinity (Honoris Causa) from JTS, and rabbinic ordination from HUC-JIR. A sampling of Zucker’s many articles on the Middle-East can be found on his blog.

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Jon D. Levenson is the Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies at Harvard University, having previously taught at the University of Chicago and at Wellesley College. He has a strong interest in the philosophical and theological issues involved in biblical studies, especially the relationship of premodern modes of interpretation to modern historical criticism. Much of his work centers on the relationship of Judaism and Christianity, both in antiquity and in modernity, and he has long been active in Jewish-Christian dialogue.His book Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (Yale University Press, 2006) won a National Jewish Book Award His latest book is The Love of God: Divine Gift, Human Gratitude, and Mutual Faithfulness in Judaism (Princeton University Press, 2016).

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Dr Malka Simkovich asks whether Avraham is the great circumcisor or in fact the great un-circumcisor of Jewish history. 

Dr. Malka Z. Simkovich is the Crown-Ryan Chair of Jewish Studies and the director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies program at CTU. She is the author of The Making of Jewish Universalism: From Exile to Alexandria (2016), and Discovering Second Temple Literature: The Scriptures and Stories That Shaped Early Judaism (2018), which received the 2019 AJL Judaica Reference Honor Award. Simkovich’s articles have been published in journals such as the Harvard Theological Review and the Journal for the Study of Judaism, as well as on online forums such as The Lehrhaus, TheTorah.com, and the Times of Israel. She is involved in numerous local and international interreligious dialogue projects which help to increase understanding and friendship between Christians and Jews.

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Professor Edward Greenstein outlines the Tower of Babel story as indicating the limitation of one language to convey the sense of another. 

Professor Edward Greenstein is Professor Emeritus of Bible at Bar-Ilan University. He received the Emet Prize in Humanities-Biblical Studies for 2020, and his book, Job: A New Translation, won the acclaim of the American Library Association, the Association for Jewish Studies, and many others. He has been writing a commentary on Lamentations for the Jewish Publication Society. 

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Professor Menachem Kellner asks why the Torah begins with the account of creation and discusses the nature and purpose of Torah according to Rashi and Maimonides. 

Menachem Kellner is a scholar of medieval Jewish philosophy  with a particular focus on the philosophy of Maimonides. He is a retired Professor of Jewish Thought at the University of Haifa and is the founding chair of the Department of Philosophy and Jewish Thought at Shalem College in Jerusalem. He has taught courses in philosophy and religious studies, medieval and modern Jewish philosophy at numerous US universities and the University of Haifa. He is best known for his book Must A Jew Believe Anything?, which was a Koret Jewish Book Award finalist.

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Avraham Leader discusses some of the important themes for this auspicious time of year as seen from the perspective of the Zohar and the Lurianic writings. 

Avraham Leader is an internationally acclaimed teacher of various schools of Kabbalah, a founder of Jerusalem's Leader Minyan, and chairman of the Wuste Tzega Center for Culturally Adapted Psychotherapy . He has published primary Kabbalistic texts, and founded the Matzref Academy for the Study of Rabbi Avraham Abulafia's Teachings. His students include teachers, researchers, rabbis and beginners.

Avraham discusses Rosh Hashana and the Tishrei Holidays from a Kabbalistic perspective in a series of 4 presentations. To purchase the series, please contact Adin on whatsapp at +972 54-778-1838 or email him at [email protected]. The cost is $50, payable by PayPal to [email protected]

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Dr. David Lambert is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) where he teaches Hebrew Bible. He received his Ph.D., M.A., and A.B. from Harvard University’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. He is the author of How Repentance Became Biblical: Judaism, Christianity, and the Interpretation of Scripture.