A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard, Ph.D

The event was co-sponsored by Congregation Or Tzion

About The Event:

Why is Jewish Law important and relevant for us today? Written and oral Torah has been an ongoing adaptive legal system for over 3500 years. Its central institutions have been Justice and Loving Kindness, the Sabbath, and the Temple system. This talk will explore the ideals that have guided and still guide Jewish law in its search to fulfill the Divine will.

About The Speaker:

Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard, Ph.D teaches at the Law Faculty of Humboldt University in Berlin and is an adjunct at Fordham Law School in New York. He also taught and consulted with Jewish leadership groups across North America for many years. Rabbi Blanchard is the co-author of Embracing Life and Facing Death: A Jewish Guide to Palliative Care, as well as academic articles, parables, and stories.

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Adina Allen

The event was co-sponsored by:

About The Event:

Join us for an inspiring book talk with artist and educator Rabbi Adina Allen, author of The Place of All Possibility: Cultivating Creativity Through Ancient Jewish Wisdom. Creativity offers us a portal to transformation, spiritual connection, and revelation. It is there for us when we feel stuck, divided, or disconnected. When we bring our creativity to the Torah, we can surface new and potent insights that can support us in times of challenge. In her highly anticipated first book, Rabbi Adina Allen delivers a paradigm-shifting and powerfully accessible reading of the Torah as a contemporary guidebook for creativity and invites us to rethink and transform ourselves, our lives, and the world around us.

About The Speaker:

Rabbi Adina Allen is a spiritual leader, writer, and educator who grew up in an art studio where she learned firsthand the power of creativity for connecting to self and the Sacred. She is co-founder and creative director of Jewish Studio Project (JSP), an organization that is seeding a future in which every person is connected to their creativity as a force for healing, liberation, and social transformation. Based on the work of her mother, renowned art therapist Pat B. Allen, Adina developed the Jewish Studio Process, a methodology for unlocking creativity, which she has brought to thousands of activists, educators, artists, and clergy across the country. A national media contributor, popular speaker, and workshop leader, Adina’s writing can be found in scholarly as well as mainstream publications and on her website at www.adina-allen.com.

*This podcast is sponsored by the Jewish Tuition Organization, known as the JTO. For more information about the Jewish Tuition Organization or to donate*

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi J. Rolando Matalon

The event was co-sponsored by BMH-BJ

About The Event:

Composed and sung in different lands from the 3rd or 4th century CE on, piyut is the sung sacred poetry that has accompanied individuals, families, and entire communities in the spiritual journey of life throughout Jewish history and which represents the core of the Jewish people’s spiritual world.

Piyutim are the sacred songs that have made the experience of Shabbat and the Jewish holidays beautiful and holy, both at the synagogue and around the table at home, as well as lifecycle celebrations: the birth of a child, Bar and Bat Mitzvah, and marriage.

*Sources: https://www.nli.org.il/en/discover/music/jewish-music/piyut/piyut

About The Speaker:

Roly Matalon is the Senior Rabbi and Rosh Kehillah (Head of the Congregation) of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in New York City. He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and was educated in Buenos Aires, Montreal, Jerusalem, and New York City. After his ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1986, Rabbi Matalon came to BJ and helped revitalize the congregation and turn its focus to prayer, learning, service, social justice, and interfaith cooperation.

Rabbi Matalon’s visionary leadership has had a profound impact on revitalizing Jewish synagogue life in the US and Israel. His involvement in the New York, Jewish, and Israeli communities is broad and deep.

Rabbi Matalon is a founding co-director of the Global Piyut Music project, a partnership with Invitation to Piyut in Israel, which is dedicated to the dissemination of liturgical music from Jewish communities around the world. A student of Arabic and Turkish music, Rabbi Matalon plays the oud (Arabic lute).

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz sits down with author Maggie Anton.

Maggie Anton is an award-winning author of historical fiction, a Talmud scholar, and an expert in Jewish women's history. Her novels include the Rashi's Daughters trilogy; Rav Hisda's Daughter: Apprentice (a National Jewish Book Award finalist) and its sequel, Enchantress; and The Choice: A Novel of Love, Faith, and the Talmud, which is a cross between midrash and fan fiction inspired by Chaim Potok's early novels. She also won a Gold Ben Franklin Award in the religion category for Fifty Shades of Talmud: What the First Rabbis Had to Say about You-Know What, a lighthearted in-depth tour of sexuality within the Talmud.

A virtual event presentation by Rabbanit Batya Hefter

About The Event:

Avraham is the father of faith for all monotheistic religions. What was so unique about Avraham that God should choose him? To answer this question, we’ll consider the Torah’s narrative, then learn a classic midrash and finally delve into an innovative and surprising Hasidic insight. Learning about Avraham’s spiritual journey may open the door to learning about our own.

*Source Sheet: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hMqF7wECfUuQGvtZfbI3WhGEnRFgN_s4/edit

About The Speaker:

Rabbanit Batya Hefter is the founder of Lev Nachon – Center for Transformative Torah, transmitting the Hasidic masters teachings into a vital ethical and spiritual path for the modern seeking Jew. Batya is completing the manuscript of her first forthcoming book, Opening the Window: Hasidic Readings for Life – The Teachings of Rabbi Ya’akov Leiner of Ishbitz-Radzyn, and she just released her for song, entitled L’David Hashem Ori.

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Dr. Mark Washofsky

The event was co-sponsored by Temple Solel

About The Event:

Reform Judaism has long taught and preached that our tradition permits us to participate fully in the life of the surrounding culture. But the sources of that tradition seem to communicate a very different message. In our session, we’ll read how two responsa—one Reform and one Orthodox—translate those sources into decisions that draw a (hopefully) proper balance between Jewish distinctiveness and citizenship in the wider world. In doing so, we’ll consider how responsa work to make contemporary meaning out of some very old sacred texts.

About The Speaker:

Mark Washofsky, emeritus professor of Rabbinics at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, is chair of the Solomon B. Freehof Institute of Progressive Halakhah. His academic publications focus upon the literature of Jewish law (halakhah) and the application of legal theory to the understanding of the Jewish legal process. He served as chair of the Responsa Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis from 1996-2017. He is the author of Reading Reform Responsa: Jewish Tradition, Reform Rabbis, and Today’s Issues and of Jewish Living: A Guide to Contemporary Reform Practice.

A hybrid event (in-person and virtual) by Rabbi Jack Moline

The event was co-hosted by Congregation Beth Israel

About The Event:

We live in a time in which the acquisition and deployment of political power has overshadowed the values of civic engagement and public service. What is the essential message of the defining document of the United States, and how can it help us to restore a sense of authenticity to both the left and the right? Rabbi Jack Moline will draw on his years as a successful congregational rabbi, prominent interfaith activist, and advisor to presidents, governors, and senators to look, as a Jew, into the Constitution and highlight its central message: empathy. On the way he will offer perspective on the role of faith in society and even what the concept of eruv teaches us about the National Mall!

About The Speaker:

Jack Moline is President Emeritus of Interfaith Alliance and also Rabbi Emeritus of Agudas Achim Congregation in Alexandria, Virginia, where he served in the pulpit for 27 years. Rabbi Moline is the author of two collections of contemporary Torah commentary, Different Chapter, Same Verse (Amazon), Volume 1 (September 2024), and Volume 2 (January 2025), in addition to earlier books on leadership, mourning, and Jewish humor. Rabbi Moline also contributes to many publications, both print and web-based, and is the host of the webcasts “The American Purpose” and “Stay Home, Stay Focused.” He is a popular speaker, featured on radio, television, and web broadcasts and in synagogues, churches, and organizations. He has been named one of the top rabbis in the United States and has advised Presidents, Senators, Members of Congress, and a lot of just good people. He lives in Alexandria with his wife Ann, and they are the parents of three happily married children and the grandparents of five.

The event was present in loving memory of Dr. Sherman Minkoff.

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz interviews Rabbi Jack Moline about hope.

Jack Moline is President Emeritus of Interfaith Alliance and also Rabbi Emeritus of Agudas Achim Congregation in Alexandria, Virginia, where he served in the pulpit for 27 years. Rabbi Moline is the author of two collections of contemporary Torah commentary, Different Chapter, Same Verse (Amazon), Volume 1 (September 2024), and Volume 2 (January 2025), in addition to earlier books on leadership, mourning, and Jewish humor. Rabbi Moline also contributes to many publications, both print and web-based, and is the host of the webcasts “The American Purpose” and “Stay Home, Stay Focused.” He is a popular speaker, featured on radio, television, and web broadcasts and in synagogues, churches, and organizations. He has been named one of the top rabbis in the United States and has advised Presidents, Senators, Members of Congress, and a lot of just good people. He lives in Alexandria with his wife Ann, and they are the parents of three happily married children and the grandparents of five.