Course Location: In Person

A History of Zionism Through
5 Thinkers, Poets & Authors

A History of Zionism Through 5 Thinkers, Poets & Authors

Program: Hebrew College Tamid
Instructor: Rabbi Dan Judson (Read Bio)
Dates: 5 Mondays, Spring 2025: 2/10, 2/24, 3/3, 3/10 & 3/17
Time:  10-11:30 a.m. EST
Course fee: $240, financial aid is available
Location: In Person at Hebrew College
Hosted by: Hebrew College
Registration:  Click here

Explore writers and thinkers who represent different perspectives on the nature and development of Zionism. History will be seen through poetry, biography and ideas. We will dive into the writing of five key figures with the goal of understanding the dynamic and various ways that Zionists before the creation of the state conceptualized Israel. The goal will be to get a kaleidoscopic sense of Israeli history tracing various movements. The figures that we’ll engage with are: Chaim Weitzmann, David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Martin Buber and A.D. Gordon.

For additional information or questions, contact the Hebrew College Tamid Team

 

Me’ah Classic Year One Bible, Wednesday evenings
Online via Zoom – Spring 2025

Me’ah Classic Year One Bible, Wednesday evenings Online via Zoom – Spring 2025

Program: Hebrew College Me’ah Classic
Instructor: Rabbi Benjamin Samuels  (Read Bios)
Dates: 11 Wednesdays, Spring 2025: 2/5, 2/12, 2/19, 2/26, 3/5, 3/12, 3/19, 3/26, 4/9, 4/23 & 4/30
Time:  7-9:00 p.m. EST
Course Fee: $490 for the Spring Bible semester, financial aid is available
Location: Zoom
Hosted by: Hebrew College
Registration: Click here

NOTE: We are offering the same 2-year schedule of learning for Me’ah Classic as when this program begins in the Fall.
This means that all who choose to begin this Spring with this Me’ah Classic Bible course will be able to continue with
the next course in the 2-year series on Rabbinics in Fall 2025 and so on to complete the full 2-year study program.

Course Description: Bible, Semester 1, Year 1 of Me’ah Classic:

The Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, is the central text of ancient Israel and the foundational text for Judaism through the ages. You’ll examine the various biblical genres, structures, concepts, theological and historical settings of the biblical world, and then explore selected topics, often integrated with rabbinic perspectives.

This sequence balances an overview of the Hebrew Bible with focused discussion of core texts, such as the Creation stories, the binding of Isaac, the Exodus story, the revelation at Sinai and the prophetic books. You’ll analyze the primary biblical texts and secondary scholarly materials through various lenses: literary, historical-comparative, and rabbinic commentary.

While you may be familiar with the Bible from childhood, this in-depth exposure to other texts and different modes of reading will challenge you — and may well lead you to reassess some long-held views.

For additional information and questions, contact the Hebrew College Tamid Team

Introduction to Judaism
In Person Cohort
Winter/Spring 2025

Introduction to Judaism – In Person Cohort

Program: Hebrew College Tamid
Instructors: Rabbi Leslie Gordon and Rabbi Allison Berry (Read Bios)
Dates: 12 Tuesdays, Winter/Spring 2025: 1/7, 1/14, 1/21, 1/28, 2/4, 2/11, 2/25, 3/4, 3/11, 3/18, 3/25 & 4/1 (the 4/1 session will be held at Mayyim Hayyim)
Time: 7-9:00 p.m. EST
Course fee: $200* (Thanks to the generosity of CJP)
Location: In Person at Hebrew College
Hosted by: Hebrew College
Registration: Click here

Jewish life and living are connected to Jewish history, thought and the cycle of time. This course, taught over two semesters, touches on the cycle of Jewish time, including holidays, lifecycle milestones and prayer. We will explore Jewish history from Biblical times to the present and the evolution of Jewish thought. In addition, we’ll examine Jewish family and communal life, relationship with the Divine and the land of Israel.

For additional information and questions, contact the Hebrew College Tamid Team

Me’ah Classic -Year Two Modern: Tuesday Evenings
In Person at Hebrew College -Spring 2025

Year Two Modern: Tuesday Evenings -In Person at Hebrew College

Program: Hebrew College Me’ah Classic
Instructor: Dr. Jordan Katz  (Read Bio)
Dates: 11 Tuesdays, Spring 2025: 1/14, 1/21, 1/28, 2/4, 2/11, 2/18, 2/25, 3/4, 3/11, 3/18 & 3/25
Time: 7 -9 p.m. EST
Course fee: $490 for the Spring Modern semester only, financial aid is available
Location: In Person at Hebrew College
Hosted by: Hebrew College
Registration:  Click here

The Me’ah Classic Year 2 Program begins with Medieval in the Fall and continues with Modern in the Spring.  Your tuition covers the Spring semester.

Winter/Spring: Modern

Beginning with the 17th century Age of Enlightenment, modernity posed a significant challenge to traditional Jewish culture, community, and identity, creating new social and economic opportunities but also threatening traditional Jewish values and society. As in each of the previous eras, modern Jews remained preoccupied with sacred texts, suggesting that however great the impact of rupture and discontinuity, their passion for reading and re-reading classical Jewish texts became the creative wellspring for modern Jewish thought.

You’ll delve into some of these modern primary texts representing differing ideological viewpoints — works of Jewish philosophers such as Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, and Zionist thinkers such as Ahad Ha’am and Micha Josef Berdyczewski — that mirror the issues faced by Jews of that era.

And you’ll wrestle with the subtle points of comparison and contrast between Jewish modernity and the civilization we’ve inherited. Texts will examine the emancipation of European Jewry; the rise of Hasidism; the Jewish cultural revolution of Eastern Europe; and the birth of Modern Zionism.

We encourage students to take Year One before registering for Year Two. If, however, starting with Year Two would work better for your schedule, please contact Terri Swartz Russell, Program Director at the Hebrew College Tamid Team

From Darkness to Light: The New History of Jewish Christian Relations

From Darkness to Light: The New History of Jewish Christian Relations

Program: Hebrew College Tamid
Instructor: Dr. Jacob Meskin (Read Bio)
Dates: 8 Tuesdays, Fall 2024: 10/29, 11/5, 11/12, 11/19, 12/3, 12/10, 12/17 & 1/7
Time: 9:30-11:30 a.m. ET
Course fee: $400, financial aid is available
Location: In Person at Temple Isaiah, 55 Lincoln Street, Lexington
Hosted by: The Lexington Collaborative (Temples Isaiah and Emunah)
Registration:  Click here

Jewish and Christian researchers have invited all of us to re-imagine, in radical ways, the original emergence of what we now call “Christianity” from the matrix of Judaism in the first century CE.

These and other developments promise new hope for those who seek to repair the complex and often tragic history of Jewish Christian relations, and who look forward to Jews and Christians living side by side, in their respective faiths, as friends and allies.

In this course, we will study the often-painful history of Jewish Christian relations, drawing on the latest scholarship and innovative paradigms. Our focus will be on what happened, on why it happened and, above all, on how understanding the deep reasons behind past events can liberate us to envision a better future. Through this kind of study contemporary Jews and Christians can fully grasp that the future need not be like the past.

Among other topics, we will take up the following: the Jewishness of Jesus, the essential role of Paul and the relationship between his teachings and Judaism, the central nature of Rabbinic Judaism, Church doctrine and theological ideas about Jews in the middle ages, the Crusades, popular prejudices against Jews in Europe, the Reformation and the Jews, Christian Hebraism, British Protestant attitudes toward Jews, Vatican II and the Jews, and the relationships between Evangelical Christianity and Jews.

For more information or questions, contact the Hebrew College Tamid Team

Succession in Judaism: Joy and Danger

Succession in Judaism: Joy and Danger

Program: Hebrew College Tamid
Instructor: Rabbi Nehemia Polen  (Read Bio)
Dates: 5 Wednesdays, Fall 2024: 11/6, 11/13, 11/20, 12/4 & 12/11
Time:  10-11:30 a.m. ET
Course fee: $250, financial aid is available
Location: In Person at Hebrew College
Hosted by: Hebrew College
Registration:  Click here

Who succeeds the parent/leader/teacher/prophet? This is a key question for any culture, and certainly for Judaism—so focused on transmission of Torah, spirit, historical memory and blessing. Our study explores biblical, rabbinic, kabbalistic and hasidic accounts of transmission of wisdom, leadership and charisma. Succession may be accomplished with grace and generosity, or with tension and rupture—and often with both at the same time. In the biblical period we will focus on prophetic transmission, such as that between Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha. We will also read the narratives of royal succession, especially in the houses of Saul and David. For the Rabbinic period, we look at the many stories of the sometimes kindly, sometimes fraught relationship between teacher and student, as well as tales of both camaraderie and competition among disciples of a great Rabbinic teacher.  We will explore charismatic discipleship in kabbalistic circles and the culture of Hasidism, which views the master-disciple relationship as an intimate covenant binding soul to soul. Finally, we will examine contemporary parallels in the fields of science, medicine and the arts, especially music.  As a case study, we will read composer Philip Glass’s account of his relationship with two great but very different teachers–Nadia Boulanger and Ravi Shankar.

For additional information and questions, contact the Hebrew College Tamid Team