The Aquarian Minyan Yeshiva

CURRENT & UPCOMING CLASSES*

*All classes are offered virtually via Zoom, unless stated otherwise. Class times listed are for Pacific Standard Time

Israel / Palestine:  A Parallel Narrative Approach with Eleanor Shapiro, Ph.D.

March 21, March 28, April 4, April 11, 2024

Thursdays 12pm Pacific / 3pm Eastern

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*There is a suggested minimum donation of $60 for all four sessions of this class. Recordings will be provided to all who register.

The current war between Israel and Hamas can make the situation feel too complex and painful to contemplate. Addressing the roots of the conflict, this parallel narrative approach ultimately offers an alternative to the despair that comes with hopeless headlines. All levels of learning are welcome. Students are encouraged to watch the film “1913: Seeds of Conflict” (available on YouTube and PBS.org) before the first session of this class to prepare for the discussion.

Week one will cover the period 1920-1947 British Mandate Palestine. Week two will address the period 1948-1967 Israeli Independence / Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe) to the Six Day War. Week three will cover  1967 – to the present.  The fourth and final week Points of Hope - Breaking the Cycle of Violence will explore possibilities for the future.

About Eleanor Shapiro

Eleanor Shapiro received her Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union in 2018, focusing on Jewish music in contemporary Poland. Prior to that, she directed the Berkeley-based Jewish Music Festival for fifteen years. From 1982-1990 she lived and worked in both the Arab and Jewish sectors in Israel as an English instructor and subsequently as a freelance journalist. She covered the first Palestinian Uprising 1988-1990 primarily for the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, and as a researcher/ interpreter for the Miami Herald and New York Newsday. Upon her return to the Bay Area, she did graduate work in Middle East Studies at UC Berkeley.

Kabbalah and Science: Intersection and Dialogue with Rabbi Dr. Jeff Amshalem 

Tuesdays 12pm Pacific/ 3pm Eastern

April 9, 16, 30 and May 7

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*There is a minimum suggested donation of $60 for all four sessions of this class. Recordings will be provided to all who register

In this series we will look at the fascinating interplay of Kabbalah and science in the 17th and 18th centuries. Following the scientific revolution, most Westerners, not only Jews, were reconsidering the relationship between religion and science, as some people tried to categorically separate the two, others to unite the two, and others to put them in dialogue. Over four sessions we will learn from four Kabbalists who, each in his own way, can also be seen as scientists: Yehudah Loew ben Bezalel, better known as the Maharal of Prague, made famous as the creator of the golem but actually much more interesting for his thoughts on God and nature; Avraham Yagel, a physician, kabbalist, and naturalist who lived in northern Italy, a center of cosmopolitan learning and discovery; Pinhas of Korets, an early Hasidic master whose kabbalistic teachings and observations about nature as revealing God earned him the nickname "the divine philosopher"; and Pinhas Hurwitz, whose book Sefer ha-Brit, both a scientific encyclopedia and a kabbalistic treatise, is credited with bringing modern science into the orthodox world and the orthodox world into modernity. The series will combine background knowledge with focused study of these kabbalists' works.

About Rabbi Dr. Jeff Amshalem

Rabbi Dr. Jeff Amshalem has been in Jewish education for over twenty years in a variety of roles, and has done much of his learning and teaching in pluralistic environments such as Pardes and Beit Midrash Elul in Jerusalem and at Hebrew College in Massachusetts. He earned his PhD in Jewish Thought from Ben-Gurion University and has orthodox rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Daniel Landes and Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg of Jerusalem. He now teaches in the Religion Department at Tufts University and lives in Sharon, MA, with his chef wife, Ariella, four children, a dog, a cat, and a flock of chickens.