Category: Events

We have the honor and joy of gathering online to celebrate Rabbi Art Green’s milestone birthday with a special Zoom event on Monday, April 5th at 7 p.m.

Art will offer a retrospective on his most essential teachings and some of his students and friends will share blessings and remarks.

Rabbi Arthur Green

Rabbi Arthur Green was the founding dean and is currently rector of the Rabbinical School and Irving Brudnick Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Religion at Hebrew College. He is Professor Emeritus at Brandeis University, where he occupied the distinguished Philip W. Lown Professorship of Jewish Thought. He is both a historian of Jewish religion and a theologian; his work seeks to form a bridge between these two distinct fields of endeavor.

If you would like to make a gift in celebration of Art’s special birthday, he has requested all gifts be directed to the “Art Green Research Fund.” Please indicate this fund in the comments section of our online giving form or on your check. Thank you.

PASSOVER, SACRED GENDER & SELF-LIBERATION

 Wednesday, March 31, 7-8:30pm ET

Join Breath Lab for the full moon of the Hebrew month of Nisan, as we celebrate Passover, the Jewish people’s festival of freedom. Back in the fall, in the Book of Genesis, we learned that God is both Zachar (Male) and Nekevah (Female) — we also learned that human beings, created in God’s image, hold these two sacred aspects of Self. Now, as we step inside the story of Exodus, God reveals both energies in unison, acting as both Ish Milchama, the Man-of-War archetype of the Plagues, and as Imanu, our Sacred Mother, birthing the Israelite Nation across the sea’s parted canal.

What could this mean for our own personal liberation? Led by a team of four fabulous teachers—Adele, a doula and midwife-in-training; Eliza and Jeremy, a pair of advanced embodiment teachers; and Joey, a rabbinical student at Hebrew College—we will turn to Jewish text, along with embodied practice, to name, discuss, and tune ourselves into the “sacred feminine” and “sacred masculine” energies we all hold. May freedom speedily follow!

Breath Lab, a center for Jewish embodiment, is a project of RUACH. RUACH nurtures creative, traditionally rooted Jewish practice, and is a member of Hebrew College’s planned new campus.

A Note on Inclusion

Participants will choose one aspect to focus on for the workshop, in either a Sacred Feminine or Sacred Masculine breakout room. Folks of all genders (cis, trans, queer and non-binary) are enthusiastically welcome, and will be invited to choose the space that speaks to them in the moment. The only way from gender constriction to gender liberation is together!

Our Teachers

Jeremy Falk empowers people through transformational breath and embodiment practices backed by 15 years of experience and over 1,000 hours of training in movement sciences, meditation, and positive psychology. He’s traveled the world studying wellness and has been honored for his accessible approach with Ambassadorships for Lululemon, Fitbit, and Yoga Journal. You can learn more at jeremyfalk.com and by connecting with @jeremyfalkyoga on Instagram.

Joey Glick is a current rabbinical student at Hebrew College in Boston. Joey has helped to start and has been an eager participant in masculinities groups at Hebrew College and Vassar College.  A native of Pittsburgh PA, Joey is a big fan of the banjo and stew.

>> Read Joey’s blog post about this event

Adele Moss has been a professional doula since 2014. She is currently training as a homebirth midwife at Birthwise Midwifery School. In addition to birth work, Adele participates in the Community Hevra Kadisha of Greater Boston where she performs the ritual of preparing bodies for burial. She enjoys teaching traditional Jewish texts that explore our relationship to birthing and dying.

Eliza Wild empowers Women to reclaim their radiance through radical self-expression and embodied ritual.  Through her in-depth studies in the Art of Feminine Expression, Somatic Embodiment, Bhakti Yoga and Psychology, Eliza’s mission is to create a world where all women feel safe, seen, and free to embody passion and pleasure. It is by connecting to our own inner radiance that we find belonging and feel our connection to ourselves, this earth, and each other. She believes that when women come together to be held in a safe space and feel the truth of their essence, they have the power to change the world.

Join members of the Greater Boston Jewish community for “Alone & Together: A community reflection on our shared journey through COVID…and beyond” on March 13 from 7-7:30 p.m.

We’ll come together through storytelling and song to mark a year of COVID, reflect on loss and resilience, and move into healing and hope for the future.

How to Watch

The virtual event will be streamed at hebrewcollege.edu/oneyear on March 13 at 7 p.m. We look forward to *seeing* you then!

Partners

This event is presented by Jewish Family & Children’s Service of Greater Boston in partnership with Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Brezniak Funeral Directors, Hebrew College, Massachusetts Board of Rabbis, and Temple Ohabei Shalom.

Join us online for an exploration of theological, ritual, and vocational commonalities, and differences. Prepare personally for the upcoming holy days and make meaningful connections with your theological colleagues in this challenging time.

>> View the flyer

Program

9:00 a.m.
Shacharit
(Jewish morning service – open to all)
Led by: Hebrew College staff & students

9:30 AM
Welcome & Musical Meditations
Associate Dean Jacqueline Regan, Boston College School of Theology & Ministry 
Seminary Singers, Boston University School of Theology

9:45 a.m.
Plenary Session – Liberating Passages: Reflections on Spirituality in Quarantine
Moderated by: Dr. Filipe Maia, Boston University School of Theology 

with
Dean G. Sujin Pak, Boston University School of Theology
Dr. Daniel Daly, Boston College School of Theology & Ministry 
Dr. Susie Tanchel, Hebrew College

10:30 a.m. Stretch Break

10:35 a.m. Video Presentation: “Faith in Isolation”
Brenda Bancel, Take 5 Foundation & Brenda Bancel Photography LLC

10:45 a.m. Small Group Discussion
Moderated by: Students from Hebrew College, Boston College School of Theology & Ministry, and Boston University School of Theology

11:30 a.m. Closing Ritual
Rev. Charlene Zuill, Boston University School of Theology

Questions?

Please contact Tom Reid at Hebrew College’s Miller Center for Interreligious Learning & Leadership with any questions.

Sponsors

COMMENCEMENT (on Zoom)
Noon-1 P.M. EST

Please join us for a brief virtual ceremony at noon on June 6 streamed to the Hebrew College YouTube channel to honor and celebrate those receiving degrees in all of our programs, and mark this important milestone in their journeys as rabbis, cantors, and Jewish educators.

>> Watch the ceremony

>> Learn more about the graduates and honorees here

>> View the invitation [pdf]

CANTORIAL ORDINATION (livestreamed)
1:15 P.M. EST

Join us for this year’s Cantorial Ordination ceremony. Watch here.

To learn more about this year’s class and/or to make a gift in their honor to help fund a scholarship for a future rabbinical student, click here.

RABBINICAL ORDINATION (livestreamed)
3:00 P.M. EST

Join us for this year’s Rabbinical Ordination ceremony. Watch here.

To learn more about this year’s class and/or to make a gift in their honor to help fund a scholarship for a future rabbinical student, click here.

Honorary Degree Recipients

Rabbi Nancy Flam

Rabbi Nancy Flam is a pioneer in the field of Jewish healing and contemporary spirituality.  She co-founded the Jewish Healing Center in 1991 and served as director of the Jewish Community Healing Program of Ruach Ami: Bay Area Jewish Healing Center in San Francisco. She served for five years (1999 – 2003) as the Founding Director of The Institute for Jewish Spirituality, a retreat-based learning program for Jewish leaders, before becoming Senior Program Director (2004 – 2019), where she headed retreat-based learning programs for rabbis and community leaders, directed the highly-innovative Prayer Project, and taught on the faculty of the Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training program. She has served as a consultant for Synagogue 2000, the National Center for Jewish Healing, Romemu Yeshiva, and other emerging Jewish organizations. She currently serves as a spiritual director to many rabbis, cantors and Jewish lay people.

Rabbi Flam earned her B.A. in Religion from Dartmouth College in 1982 (Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude) and her M.A.  in Hebrew Literature from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1986. She was ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1989. She trained in Clinical Pastoral Education (C.P.E.) and has served as volunteer chaplain at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Long Island College Hospital. Rabbi Flam teaches widely on the topics of Judaism, healing, and spirituality, and has written on these issues for such publications as Wrestling with the Angel: Jewish Insights on Death and Mourning, edited by Jack Riemer; Jewish Pastoral Care, edited by Dayle Friedman; Best Contemporary American Jewish Writing, edited by Michael Lerner; A New Hasidism: Branches, edited by Arthur Green and Ariel Mayse; and Jewish Mysticism and the Spiritual Life, edited by Fine, Fishbane, and Rose. She is the Series Editor for LifeLights, a Jewish series of informational, inspirational pamphlets on challenges in the emotional and spiritual life.

Rabbi Flam is the mother of two young adult children, and lives in Northampton, Mass., with her husband, Dr. Neil Kudler, and amidst her beloved synagogue community, Congregation B’nai Israel.

Melila Hellner-Eshed

Melila Hellner-Eshed is a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, where she initiated and directs Maskilot, an intensive two program for women doctoral candidates. She has taught Jewish mysticism and Zohar in the department of Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem for the past 25 years.

Hellner-Eshed received her Ph.D. from Hebrew University under the tutelage of Professor Yehuda Liebes.  For the past three decades, she has been a central figure in the Israeli renaissance of study of Jewish texts by Israeli adults of all paths of life in various frameworks. She has been teaching and working with Jewish communities in North America, Europe, and the former Soviet Union for many years. Her publications include A River Flows from Eden: The Language of Mystical Experience in the Zohar (in Hebrew: Alma and Am Oved, 2005; in English:  Stanford University Press, 2009); and Seekers of the Face – The Secrets of the Idra Rabba in the Zohar, published in Hebrew in September 2017. The English translation will be published in summer 2021 by Stanford University Press.

Hellner-Eshed also serves on the faculty of the Institute of Jewish Spirituality and is active in the “Sulha,” a reconciliation project that brings together Israelis and Palestinians.

Join us for Hebrew College Me’ah Classic graduation as we celebrate our students who have completed their two years of study in the program.

With 100 (me’ah in Hebrew) hours of coursework over two years, Me’ah Classic  takes students on a journey through the narrative of the Jewish people and empowers students to become part of the conversation.