How can we make our study of Torah not only "interesting," but truly transformative in our lives?
Rabbi Josh Feigelson, President and CEO of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, answers this question and many more in his recently-published book Eternal Questions: Reflections, Conversations, and Jewish Mindfulness Practices for the Weekly Torah Portion. Joining R. Feigelson in conversation about this book, Professor Sam S.B. Shonkoff, Taube Family Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union, will dive deeper into suggested practices to help turn Torah study into more mindful, intentional exercises for living.
This event is both in-person and virtual. The in-person gathering will be held in the 3rd Floor Boardroom of the GTU Library. All registered attendees will be sent a Zoom link closer to the date of the event.
Register Here
To join by Zoom, click here.
Additionally, ahead of the event at 6pm Rabbi Feigelson will lead an Institute for Jewish Spirituality meditation session, also on the 3rd floor of the GTU Library. If you would like to attend this session, please send an email to cjs@gtu.edu to RSVP.
The book will be available for purchase and signing at the in-person event. Virtual attendees interested in acquiring the book, please purchase directly from Ben Yehuda Press, bookshop.org, or wherever you purchase books.
This event is presented in partnership by the JCC East Bay and the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.
Please note: The entrance to the GTU Library has moved; please go around the corner on Scenic Ave. and enter through the first floor.
Rabbi Josh Feigelson is the President and CEO of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. He received ordination from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School in 2005, and served for six years as the Hillel Rabbi at Northwestern University, where he also earned a PhD in Religious Studies. In 2011, Josh helped found and served as Executive Director of Ask Big Questions, an initiative of Hillel International, which won the inaugural Lippman-Kanfer Prize for Applied Jewish Wisdom. Josh has also been a consultant and Senior Fellow at The iCenter for Israel Education. Most recently he served as Dean of Students at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Josh is a Wexner Graduate Fellow and was the founding co-chair of the Wexner Fellowship Alumni Committee. He is the author of Eternal Questions: Reflections, Conversations, and Jewish Mindfulness Practices for the Weekly Torah Portion (Ben Yehuda Press, 2022). Josh lives with his wife Natalie and their three sons in Skokie, IL.
Sam S.B. Shonkoff is the Taube Family Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at the GTU, where he teaches on Jewish religious thought as well as methods in the study of religion. His scholarship focuses primarily on German-Jewish and Hasidic theologies, as well as appropriations of Hasidic spirituality in relatively secular spheres. Shonkoff is co-editor with Ariel Evan Mayse of Hasidism: Writings on Devotion, Community and Life in the Modern World (Brandeis University Press, 2020) and the editor of Martin Buber: His Intellectual and Scholarly Legacy (Brill, 2018). His current book project investigates themes of embodiment in Buber’s representations of Hasidism vis-à-vis the original sources. He is also affiliated with the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics and taught previously at Oberlin College. To view Shonkoff's publications, please visit https://gtu.academia.edu/SamShonkoff.