Kabbalah/Hasidut
Historical overview of the development of classical Kabbalah and Eastern European Hasidut; focused study of one Hasidic Rebbe to whom you are attracted; mystical understandings of Jewish sacred time and practice.
Hasidic Texts and Spiritual Practice
This course examines Hasidic approaches to the major ideas and pathways of Judaism. We will explore the central themes in Hasidism through studying selected texts authored by great Hasidic masters from the 18th century to the present. This journey will lead to an in-depth understanding of the unique Hasidic approaches to Jewish values and practices and an appreciation of Hasidism’s profound theological and psychological insights.
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Elective
Hasidism as Mysticism: The Radical Teachings of Nachman of Breslov
The focus of this course is on Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810), one of the most celebrated masters of Jewish mysticism and Hasidism, whose radical writings —poised on the precipice of modernity— have attained the status of spiritual classics. The ongoing fascination with Nachman stems both from his singular (mercurial, multi-tiered, seeking) personality and from the profound and uncompromising nature of his theological vision. Together we will explore the existentialist Nachman confronting the absence of God (his Torah of the Void); the questing Nachman wrestling with depression and utopian grandeur; and the mystical Nachman, finding vivid manifestations of the divine in the realm of nature (in Forest and birds, the grasses of the field), in song and hitbodedut, and in interpersonal dialogue and spiritual practices that deconstruct (and reconstruct) the ordinary self. Mitzvah gedolah lihyot be-simcha! This course fulfills the content of the Intensive Study of one Rebbe.
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Elective
Intensive Study of One Sefer or the Work of One Rebbe
This is a course of varying content and varying titles which focuses on the life-work of a particular Hasidic rebbe or a particular sefer.
Some examples of rebbes and their s’farim are:
- The Ba’al Shem Tov: Sefer HaBesht; Shivchey HaBesht; Tzava’at HaRivash
- Ya’akov Yosef of Polenoye: Toldot Ya’akov Yosef; Ben Porat Yosef
- Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezeritch: Maggid D’varav L’Ya’akov; Likkutim Y’karim
- Elimelech of Lizensk: No’am Elimelech
- Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev: Kedushat Levi
- Schneur Zalman of Liadi: Tanya; Torah Or; Likkutei Torah>
- Nachman of Breslov: Likkutei Moharan; Sippurei Ma’asiyot
- Mordechai Yosef of Isbitza: Mei HaShilo’ach
- Menachem Mendel of Chernobyl: M’or Einayim
- Tzvi Elimelech of Dinov: Bnai Yissaschar
- Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger: S’fat Emet
- Moshe Hayyim Efraim of Sudelikov: Degel Machaneh Efraim
- Rav Kook: Orot HaKodesh
- Simcha Bunem of Przysucha (Pshizcha): Kol Simcha
- Shalom Noah Berzovsky of Slonim: Netivot Shalom
- Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Piaseczner Rebbe: Derech ha-Melech; Esh Kodesh; B’nai Mahshavah Tovah
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Rabbinic: Content Required
Introduction to Hasidut (readings in English)
This course examines Hasidic approaches to the major ideas and pathways of Judaism. We will explore the central themes in Hasidism through studying selected texts authored by great Hasidic masters from the 18th century to the present. This journey will lead to an in-depth understanding of the unique Hasidic approaches to Jewish values and practices and an appreciation of Hasidism’s profound theological and psychological insights.
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Cantorial: ALEPH Required
Hashpa’ah: ALEPH Required
RP: ALEPH Required Elective
Mo’adim l’Simcha: Hasidic Teachings on the Sacred Year Part 1 & Part 2
Two semesters. This course is based on learning to read (decode, historically contextualize, interpret, and integrate into our lives) key Hasidic texts in the Hebrew original. The focus will be on the Sacred Year as a Guide to Spiritual Practice. Key texts to be explored include: the Sefat Emet, the Netivot Shalom of the Slonimer Rebbe, the B’nei Yissachar, and teachings of Nachman of Bratslav. We will also read a key Hebrew text on the Sacred Year by Reb Zalman, enabling us to confront the Paradigm Shift. Our focus will be on key primary texts that are sure to challenge and enrich your own practice.
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Rabbinic: ALEPH Required
Mussar Practice: Middot
The physicist Neils Bohr once said that the opposite of a simple truth is a falsehood, but the opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth. In our spiritual lives we are often called upon to balance opposing truths: the need to cleave to those we love and to let go; as Jews to simultaneously embody Yisrael (one who wrestles with God) and Yehuda (one who practices gratitude); to be open to moments of breakthrough and to cultivate the slow, subtle movement of soul. In this course, we will explore some key psycho-spiritual moments in the life of the spirit, drawing upon classic kabbalistic and Hasidic texts.
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Elective
Mystical Shabbat
To enter the Sabbath is to step out of the ‘River of More,’ of constantly needing to consume, do more. It is to practice having/being “enough,” of living into our largest visions our largest selves. In this course we will explore what it means to live with this expanded awareness through texts and practices that explore the plenitude of Shabbat and its vision of a more just and loving world: Shabbat in Historical Perspective/ Neshamah Yeterah /Contemplative Practices/Rituals for Entering Shabbat/Kabbalistic Bakashot and Zemirot/Havdallah/Hasidic Practices/ Zohar/ Et Ratzon/Seudah Shlishit.
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Elective
Tanya
Tanya is the foundational text of Chabad Hasidut. It introduces a paradigm shift in positing that existence is animated by the spiritually lowest realms and reimages God, mitzvah, and purpose in this light. The text sees every moment of our lives in terms of profound moral choice. This course will provide a glimpse of this consciousness, the extent of which will depend on the student.
This course fulfills the content of Intensive Study of one Rebbe.
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Elective
Transformation, Reformation or Retrenchment
(formerly The History of Hasidism)
The history of Hasidism is filled with salient questions: Who (and what) birthed Hasidism, and how much does it owe to previous Jewish experience and thought? How did the Mitnagdim help shape those they opposed (and vice versa)? This course will ask what innovations in ritual, practice, and beliefs can be attributed to Hasidism, what roles (if any) women played in its history, and how institutions and communities of uncompromising separatism could emerge from its roots. We will ask how Hasidism reinvented itself after the Holocaust in forms so myriad that they included Jewish Renewal among them.
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Elective
Ve-yesh Sod La-Davar: Themes of Jewish Mystical Tradition (Readings in English)
This course is an engaged study of the development of Jewish mysticism, its symbolic universe, meditation practices, and social ramifications. While we will survey Jewish mystical traditions from the early Rabbinic period through the modern, the heart of the course is that many-branched (post)-medieval stream known as kabbalah.
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Cantorial: ALEPH Required
Hashpa’ah: ALEPH Required
Rabbinic: Content Required
RP: ALEPH Required
Zohar
The purpose of this course is to enable students to learn to carefully read the Zohar and enter its symbolic universe. (Creativity and spiritual improvisation; the symbolization of the Shekhinah; the dialectic between Revealment and Concealment; Exile and Redemption are among the topics we will explore.) To this end, we will make use of the “original” neo-Aramaic text, as well as Hebrew translations and commentaries. We will also read selected secondary literature investigating the Zohar’s historical placement,, the riddle of its authorship (not only who composed it, but how was it “written” amid the so-called “circle of the Zohar”), its reception history, and popularization.
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