The Tisch with Rabbi Michael Knopf

Part One of Rabbi Knopf’s teaching for Tikkun Leil Shavuot (June 11, 2016), on the spiritual and moral message of one of Judaism’s oldest and most ubiquitous prayers, the Priestly Blessing.

Rabbi Knopf digs into the Slonimer Rebbe’s extraordinary essay on prayer, “Prayer is the Service of the Heart.” This month: if prayer is about pouring our hearts out to God, what do we do when we pray on Shabbat, where we don’t ask God for anything at all?

Part 3b of a 3 part series, in which Rabbi Knopf explores, analyzes, and debates various approaches to understanding God in modern Jewish thought. This session: Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, Conservative and Reconstructionist theologies.

Part 3a of a 3 part series, in which Rabbi Knopf explores, analyzes, and debates various approaches to understanding God in modern Jewish thought. This session: Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, Conservative and Reconstructionist theologies.

Part 2b of a 3 part series, in which Rabbi Knopf explores, analyzes, and debates various approaches to understanding God in modern Jewish thought. This session: Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik and contemporary Orthodox theology.

Part 2a of a 3 part series, in which Rabbi Knopf explores, analyzes, and debates various approaches to understanding God in modern Jewish thought. This session: Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik and contemporary Orthodox theology.

Rabbi Knopf explores the permissibility of including the biblical Matriarchs in the Amidah – a stimulating conversation about Jewish history, Biblical intertextuality, Halakhah and legal theory.

Rabbi Knopf explores the permissibility of including the biblical Matriarchs in the Amidah – a stimulating conversation about Jewish history, Biblical intertextuality, Halakhah and legal theory.

Rabbi Knopf shares the final mishnah from Tractate Avot, which teaches a Jewish version of the old cliche, “No Pain, No Gain.”

The first half of Part 1 of a 3 part series, in which Rabbi Knopf explores, analyzes, and debates various approaches to understanding God in modern Jewish thought. This session: Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and modern Orthodox theology.