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"RTS charges my batteries for the entire year, and hardly a day goes by without my considering something that was said or that we learned during the course of the program. I can't even find the vocabulary to adequately express how important RTS has been for me intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically."
– Rabbi Sam Kieffer, Weston, Florida
"It was a privilege and an honor to have had the opportunity to learn with all of these outstanding scholars."
– Rabbi Charles Levi, Deerfield, Illinois
RTS Summer 2010
July 5-15, 2010
Engaging Israel: Jewish Values
and the Dilemmas of Nationhood
Since Operation Cast Lead, the subsequent Goldstone Report and recent foreign policy debates, there has been an increasing sense that anti-Israeli opinion has moved beyond criticism of some of Israel's actions and policies to the delegitimization of the Zionist project as a whole. The Jewish community at large, since the creation of the State of Israel, has taken as self-evident the need to support Israel. Yet that support is now being questioned on many levels and among large segments of the community. The Jewish community is in urgent need of a new language and argument for assimilating the significance of Israel into the modern Jewish consciousness.
The RTS 2010 seminar will focus on these urgent needs and the essential questions and challenges directed against Israel today and use them as a basis for developing a new response and language, based on Jewish ideas and values. Jewish leaders today need to be able to address crucial questions for which they currently do not know the answers. For example:
- What is the role of "peoplehood" in modern Jewish identity?
- In a world of intense individualism, can Judaism be defined primarily as a personal and internal experience, or is a sense of belonging to a Jewish collective central to giving meaning and purpose to contemporary Jewish life?
- How does Jewish sovereignty relate to the self-identity of a Jews living throughout the world?
- How does Israel balance its legitimate right of self defense with the rights of others? How do we reconcile the Jewish claim to the land with those of the Palestinian people?
- What are the requirements of morality of war, and how can Israel use its power in a way that is consistent with the highest standards of Jewish morality and values?
- Can a Jewish state be reconciled with the values of Jewish pluralism and freedom?
- What does the Jewish national project have to offer in responding to global challenges and advancing the value of Tikkun Olam?
In addition, the Summer 2010 Rabbinic Torah Study program will include evening lectures by guest scholars and Israeli political figures and excursions exploring the contemporary realities of the State of Israel.
Click here for hotel information for Summer 2010 program participants.
The Program
Rabbis play a pivotal role in determining the direction and quality of the synagogue experience and, by extension, in helping to shape Jews’ connection to Judaism. Rabbis need to cultivate spiritual and intellectual vibrancy and excellence to realize the full potential of their roles. They require ongoing learning and personal growth, as well as new ideas for communal reflection and stimulation.
Rabbinic Torah Study Seminar is an annual 10-day study program that enriches rabbis of all denominations and nurtures their capacity to inspire their communities, excite them by the Jewish tradition, and motivate them in their quest for meaning. (The 2009 program drew an unprecedented total of 100 rabbis from North America and Israel. Click here for a description of the 2009 Summer Program.)
The program brings together 100 rabbis from around the world each summer to study in a thought-provoking pluralistic framework, enhance their knowledge and provide new ideas for engaging Jewish life. Under the guidance of renowned contemporary thinkers, participants explore Jewish texts, teachings and traditions, and work with colleagues to integrate their learning into the context of their own rabbinic practice.
Rabbinic Torah Study Seminar offers a rare opportunity for rabbinic leaders of all denominations to study jointly in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Participants come together as colleagues on an equal footing to move beyond denominational divisions and discover their similarities, while learning from their differences.
Structure
Rabbinic Torah Study Seminar takes place every summer at Shalom Hartman Institute’s campus in the heart of Jerusalem. The intensive, 10-day seminar comprises lectures by Institute scholars, tutorials and small group learning, as well as encounters with Israeli thinkers, artists, writers, politicians, and leaders of North American Jewry.
Target Population
Rabbinic Torah Study Seminar is open to rabbis of all denominations from every corner of the globe who aspire to deepen their pluralistic knowledge of Judaism, expand their first-hand experience of Israel, and develop interdenominational dialogue.
Faculty
Rabbinic Torah Study Seminar teaching staff includes leading Hartman Institute scholars such as Rabbi Prof. David Hartman, Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman and Prof. Moshe Halbertal, in addition to key figures in world Jewry, such as Rabbi Dr. David Ellenson and Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller.
Information
The Summer 2009 program was titled, "Crisis and Uncertainty: Paradigms of Response." Bill Berk, Director, Center for Rabbinic Enrichment, had this to say regarding the Summer 2009 Rabbinic Torah Study Seminar: "We are responding to the unprecedented economic, political, and social changes taking place. We are well aware that the ground is shifting underneath us and we are asking the great scholars of the Hartman think tank to respond. We want to know what wisdom our tradition offers for how one might respond to crisis and uncertainty. In the Summer 2009 Rabbinic Torah Study Seminar, we identified and explored Judaism’s core paradigms that emerge in response to change and loss of meaning and how those responses are expressed, interact, and often critique each other. We will study various paradigms of response in our classical and modern texts including the Bible, the Talmud, the Zohar, post-Holocaust theology, and modern Zionist literature."
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