« Back
Past Lectures 09-10
“The Torah is not in Heaven” - Judaism as an Interpretive Culture.
Date: Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Time: 18:00
Place: Judiska Biblioteket, Wahrendorffsgatatan 3B, Stockholm
Other: Fri entré. Föranmälan till Alexander Freudenthal
It is based on the Bible – the written Torah, which is the Jewish canon, and on the oral Torah, the rabbinical tradition (Talmud and Midrash), also considered a canon. The process of interpretation ensures the actuality of the Torah and is embodied in the tradition.
What is tradition? Who decides which interpretation is the “right” one? How is tradition transmitted from one generation to the next? And if everything is a question of interpretation – what is the ‘truth’?
We will pursue these questions through texts from the written and the oral Torah.
Dr. Rachel Livneh-Freudenthal currently serves as academic adviser in the Leo Baeck Institute for the Study of the History and Culture of the German-speaking Jewry. Her fields of research include the emergence of the Science of Judaism, Modern Jewish Thought, Judaism as culture, and Jewish Hermeneutics.
Jewish Library Awareness: Texts, Books, and Libraries in Jewish Culture
Date:
Time: 18:00
Place: Biblioteket, Wahrendorffsgatan 3B.
Other: Fri entré. Föranmälan till Alexander Freudenthal
Texts have an important place in Jewish culture, and therefore also books, both sacred and secular. However, texts and books are not identical, and the lecture will explore some of the relationships between them. The theoretical concept of ‘library awareness’, meaning the imagined concept of the library, which varies according to time and place, will be used to present various models of the attitude towards books, visible and invisible, and the conceptual framework for putting them in order.
Dr. Avriel Bar-Levav is a senior lecturer at the department of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies at the Open University of Israel. He is the editor of the scholarly quarterly Pe’amim: Studies in Oriental Jewry, published by the Ben-Zvi institute in Jerusalem.
Imagined Hometown in a Real Homeland: the Roll of the “Shtetl” in the Collective Identity of the Israeli Society
Did the Jews, while emigrating en mass from Eastern Europe, really left the Shtetl behind? Did the Shtetl really “left” the Jews? Which roll the Shtetl played in the process of shaping the Israeli collective memory and what so many Israelis looking for in their nowadays trendy “return” to the mythical and the real Shtetl?
Prof. Mordechai (Motti) Zalkin is an associate professor of modern Jewish history at Ben-Gurion University in Israel. His specialization includes the social and economic history of Jews in Eastern Europe, and the history of Jewish education in the same region.
The Mystery of the Aleppo Codex, the most famous Manuscript of the Hebrew Bible
Prof Yosef Ofer from the Bible Department of Bar Ilan University.
Questions and Answers from Heaven: Halakhic Diversity in a Medieval Community
“Questions and Answers from Heaven” is a short collection of responsa in Jewish law, written in the South of France in the 13th century. Rabbi Jacob of Marveges asked “dream-questions” from the angels, and recorded the responses he received. It is a fascinating example of the way that boundaries between law and mysticism can be blurred. At the same time, it allows us a glimpse into the pragmatic concerns of a rabbi and his community in turbulent times.
Pinchas Roth is a doctoral student in the Talmud Department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he specializes in Halakhic literature from 13th century Southern France.
Chanuka ? en produkt av två kulturer
Date: Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Time: 18:00
Place: Biblioteket, Wahrendorffsgatan 3B.
Other: Fri entré. Föranmälan till Alexander Freudenthal
Vad hände egentligen 167 f.v.t.? På vilket sätt påverkar det vår tids judendom?
Vi kommer att läsa ur de olika källor som talar om chanuka och diskutera vad de säger oss idag. Relationen mellan hellenismen och den dåtida judendomen kommer även att behandlas samt det verkliga undret kring chanuka.
Alexander Freudenthal är lärare och kompositör samt arbetar med utbildning och undervisning för Judiska Församlingen i Stockholm.
Ett samarrangemang mellan Paideia och Stora Synagogan i Stockholm.
Are Rejections of Religious Faith on the basis of its Irrationality Misguided?
Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Time: 18:00
Place: Judiska Biblioteket, Wahrendorffsgatatan 3B, Stockholm
Other: Föranmälan till Alexander Freudenthal
The idea that religion is incompatible with a rational-scientific outlook is not new. It troubled Jewish philosophers of the middle ages and yet it continues to be an issue of controversy among Jewish thinkers to this day. There are several reactions that took place in Jewish thought to the supposed incompatibility. Secular and mystic thinkers share the thought that religious faith is irrational, and yet while the latter embrace it, the former reject it. Others claim that the incompatibility is merely apparent. What, then, is the relation between religious faith and scientific rationality, and how should believers and skeptics respond to this relation?
Mr. Levi Spectre teaches at Paideia: November 9-20, 2009
Mr. Levi Spectre is a PhD candidate at Stockholm University and library fellow at the Van Leer institute in Jerusalem. Levi Spectre specializes in issues pertaining to philosophical accounts of knowledge, evidence, belief, rationality and justification.
In cooperation with the Great Synagogue in Stockholm.
Maimonides: Cultural Hero and Historic Figure
Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Time: 18:00
Place: Judiska Biblioteket, Wahrendorffsgatatan 3B, Stockholm
Other: Admission free
Rabbi Moshe ben Maimun, better known as Maimonides, is considered one of the most prominent intellectual figures of Jewish culture whose essays in Jewish law, philosophy, and medicine became cornerstones of Jewish culture. The discovery of the Cairo Genizah and the research that followed enables us today to know more about Maimonides’ life story as a private person.
This lecture will introduce Genizah documents which shed new light on Maimonides’ biography and place him in the historical context of Cairo and its vivid multi-cultural ambience.
Dr. Miriam Frenkel teaches Medieval Jewish History in the Lands of Islam at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Her recent book, The Compassionate and Benevolent; the Leading Elite in the Jewish Community of Alexandria in the Middle Ages offers a new perspective on Jewish Medieval leadership.
In cooperation with the Jewish Community of Stockholm.
Krister Stendahl Memorial lecture
Date: Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Time: 16:00
Place: Storkyrkosalen, Trädgårdsgatan 9, Stockholm
Other: Fri entré, anmälan till Ann Svahn
Paul F. Knitter
Professor vid Union Theological Seminary, New York
Christianity and Other Religions: A Zero-Sum Game?
Reclaiming ”The Path Not Taken” and the Legacy of Krister Stendahl.
Fri entré
Anmälan senast 9 oktober till Ann Svahn, ann.svahn@svenskakyrkan.se, 08-508 940 43.
Arrangör: Centrum för religionsdialog i Stockholms stift i samarbete med Paideia
Esther Superstar: Madonna’s Postmodern Kabbalah
Date: Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Time: 18:00
Place: Hollandersalen, Nybrogatan 19, 3 tr
Other: Admission free
Since the late 1990’s Madonna studies Kabbalah and integrates Kabbalistic motifs in her cultural productions. The lecture will examine the sources of the Kabbalistic themes used by Madonna and analyze the postmodern features of Madonna’s Kabbalah as expressed in her music, video-clips, childrens’ books and in her choice of the Hebrew name Esther.
Professor Boaz Huss teaches Kabbalah at the Goren-Goldstein Department of Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University. He is an expert of various areas of Kabbalah, including the Zohar and contemporary Kabbalah.
Memory and Hope: Jerusalem in Rabbinic Literature
Date: Monday, September 7, 2009
Time: 18:30
Place: Hillelskolans matsal, Nybrogatan 19
Other: Admission free
Professor Avigdor Shinan was born in Prague 1946 and arrived to Israel in 1949. His academic studies (BA, PhD) were at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he has taught since 1972 at the Department of Hebrew Literature (full professor since 1998). His fields of research are the Midrashic and Aggadic literature, the Aramaic Translations of the Bible and the Jewish Prayer book. His list of publication contains more than 120 scholarly articles and 8 books.
Solomon’s Judgment and its Reflections: a Chain of Biblical Stories on the Essence of Justice
Date: Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Time: 18:00
Place: Paideia, Nybrogatan 21, 2 tr
Other: Admission free
Dr Jonathan Ben-Dov, Department of Bible, University of Haifa, teaches at the Bible department of Haifa University. He studies approaches towards nature in Hebrew religion – the Bible, apocalyptic literature, Dead sea Scrolls – and in the Mesopotamian culture. His book “Head of All years: Astronomy and Calendars at Qumran” appeared in 2008. His studies involve the history of science as well as the Israelite responses towards ancient religions of nature and towards the emerging natural sciences in the early Hellenistic period.