Jewish Quest

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Rabbi Dr Naomi Kalish uncovers what Jacob teaches us about listening and how it paves the way for peace.

Rabbi Kalish is the Harold and Carole Wolfe Director of the Center for Pastoral Education and assistant professor of Pastoral Education at JTS. Prior to coming to JTS, Rabbi Kalish taught clinical pastoral education (CPE) at New York–Presbyterian Hospital (NYP) to students from diverse religious, denominational, national, and cultural backgrounds. 

Rabbi Kalish has extensive experience in interreligious dialogue and its application for peace-building and community relations. She was a founding national co-chair of the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom’s Sadaqah-Tzedakah Day. Rabbi Kalish received a JTS Seeds of Innovation Grant in 2018 for her volunteer work in coordinating teen interreligious dialogue activities in her home community of Hudson County, New Jersey, one of the most religiously and ethnically diverse communities in the United States.

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Rabbi David Kasher asks just who is the villain in the Toldot story?

Rabbi David Kasher is the Director of Hadar West Coast. After graduating from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, he served as Senior Jewish Educator at Berkeley Hillel, a part of the founding team at Kevah, and Associate Rabbi at IKAR. Rabbi Kasher completed a translation of Avot d’Rabbi Natan for Sefaria and is the author of ParshaNut: 54 Journeys into the World of Torah Commentary.

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Rabbi Marc Soloway discusses the legacy of Sarah and the very contrasting responses of Abraham and Isaac to her death.

Rabbi Soloway has been Bonai Shalom’s Spiritual Leader in Boulder, CO. since 2004, the same year that he was ordained at The Ziegler School for Rabbinic Studies at The American Jewish University in Los Angeles. His rabbinical training spanned six years in London, Jerusalem, and Los Angeles. Before that, he was an actor and storyteller in his native London, and developed and performed a spirited one-man show of Jewish stories called The Empty Chair, as well as a show for children called The Jewish Princess and Other Stories with the acclaimed Besht Tellers Theatre Company. 

He was also a practitioner of complementary medicine, including massage and cranial-sacral therapy. Marc is a fellow of Rabbis without Borders, an alum of the Institute of Jewish Spirituality, the former chair of Hazon’s rabbinical council and was in the Forward’s 2014 list of America’s most influential rabbis. 

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Professor Kenneth Seeskin discusses the ambiguity and unresolved tension in the Akedah. 

Professor Seeskin is Professor of Philosophy and Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Professor of Jewish Civilization at Northwestern University. He received his Ph.D in Philosophy from Yale University in 1972 and has been at Northwestern ever since. He specializes in the rationalist tradition in Jewish philosophy with an emphasis on Maimonides. Publications include Maimonides on the Origin of the World (CUP, 2005), Jewish Messianic Thoughts in an Age of Despair (CUP, 2012), Thinking about the Torah: A Philosopher Reads the Bible (JPS, 2016) and Maimonides: A Guide for Today's Perplexed (Behrman House). 

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Dr Rabbi Joshua Garroway uncovers the importance of the minor character, Melchizedek. 

Dr. Rabbi Joshua Garroway is the Sol and Arlene Bronstein Professor of Judaeo-Christian Studies at HUC-JIR in Los Angeles. He holds a Ph.D. from the Religious Studies Department at Yale and ordination from HUC-JIR in Cincinnati. He is the author of, The Beginning of the Gospel: Paul, Philippi, and the Origins of Christianity.

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Dr Jeremy Tabick discusses the centrality of God's transformation in the parsha.

Dr Jeremy Tabick is the content manager and faculty at Hadar, where he teaches, curates, and edits Hadar’s content – both online and in print – and project Zug courses. Jeremy recently completed a PhD in Talmud at JTS. He graduated from the University of Manchester (in the UK) with a Masters in Physics, and is an alumnus of Yeshivat Hadar and the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He is a member of the steering team of Kehilat Hadar.

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This week for Bereshit, our director Rabbi Adam Zagoria-Moffet fills in as host as we begin a new year, welcoming Rabbi Jeremy Gordon to discuss some of the ways in which Bereshit defies our expectations and requires new explanations. From the creation of the work to the creation of Adam and Eve - nothing is quite as it seems, 'in the beginning.'

Rabbi Jeremy has a first-class honours degree in Law from Cambridge University and subsequently went to work in television for the BBC and a number of independent production companies. His love of Judaism was really ignited at the Limmud Conference in December 1995. This marked the start of a decade of study in England, at the Hebrew University and the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. He graduated from JTS with Rabbinic Ordination, a Masters in Midrash (Rabbinic Exegesis) and a number of academic awards. Rabbi Gordon is Rabbi of the New London Synagogue in St John's Wood, London

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Dr Rachel Havrelock uncovers the difference between the Priestly vision and the Deuteronomistic vision for the map of the land of Canaan. 

Dr. Rachel Havrelock is Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and English at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Rachel’s book, River Jordan: The Mythology of a Dividing Line combines biblical studies, literary and political theory, and the politics of interpretation. Rachel’s current book project, The Joshua Generation: Politics and the Promised Land, focuses on the structure and meaning of the book of Joshua and its interpretation. Her co-authored book, Women on the Biblical Road, was the beginning of her work on gender and the Bible.

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Rabbi Eliyahu Jian discusses the inner meaning behind Pinchas' act of zealotry.

Rabbi Eliyahu Jian is a global thought leader, transformational life and business coach, spiritual coach, relationship coach, author and motivational speaker. He has been transforming thousands of lives around the globe for decades, including some of the world’s most famous and influential people, such as Madonna, Demi Moore, Blake Mallen, Eva Cavalli, Elie Tahari, Marla Maples, and Guy Ritchie.

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Professor Everett Fox uncovers the unusual features of the Balaam narrative. 

Professor Everett Fox is the Allen M. Glick professor of Judaic and Biblical Studies at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. Fox is the translator of The Five Books of Moses (Schocken Books, 1995), and The Early Prophets (Schocken Books, 2014).