Join us for a conversation about The Book of Revolutions: The Battles of Priests, Prophets and Kings by Rabbi Edward Feld, which tells in dramatic fashion, the epic saga of ancient Israel and illuminates the history behind the three legal codes in the Torah, which often conflict. Rabbi Feld and Rabbi Salkin will discuss Rabbi Feld's conclusion that the unknown editors of the Torah deliberately left those contradictory codes in the final text to emphasize that there is not a…

Most ancient texts come to us without authorship or attribution, yet the first named author in history was a woman: Enheduanna (ca. 2285-2250 BCE). She was a Princess and a High Priestess in Sumer who told us the grandeur and sorrows of her life in the hymns and petitionary prayers that she wrote. Her compositions were highly valued, and therefore they were copied and re-copied in antiquity; many are thought to be early foundations of some of our own biblical…

Alas, it is impossible to overstate Moses Maimonides’ influence on Judaism.  At the height of the Islamic enlightenment, Moses was born (1138) in Cordoba, Spain to Maimon the judge.  His family fled a decade later when the tolerant Islamic regime was overthrown by a fanatic sect. Finally settling in Cairo, Maimonides served as physician to the Sultan, Saladin, during the Christian Crusades in the Land of Israel.  The product of high Islamic culture and deep Jewish learning, Maimonides transformed Jewish…

“By the time the holidays are over, maybe you’ve had a minute or five minutes or 30 seconds of something absolutely real and deep. All the hours invested are worth, in other words, the 30 seconds or the five seconds of something really, really deep — with God, with the community, with the music, with the text, with Israel, with the language. There are a million possibilities where our connection may happen. And that moment of connection is worth the…

Wednesdays mornings from 10:00-10:45 am   Give yourself the gift of calm. Join Julie Potiker for this grounding way to start the day and move from a place of fear to a place of calm. In these forty-five-minute mindfulness sessions, you will experience bringing your attention to the present moment without judgment. For past sessions, visit: https://blubrry.com/balancedmind/ About Julie: Julie Potiker is a mindfulness expert with extensive teacher training in a variety of tools and methods, including Mindful Self-Compassion. Through her…

Join Rabbi Gimbel for a class that will cover both the depth and breadth of our Shabbat prayers. Together, we will uncover how we pray, why we pray each prayer, and what we are meant to get out of the t’filah (prayer) experience. We also will discover various musical and textual interpretations of our prayers, some you likely have never heard! This class is not just for beginners! All learners are welcome! Rabbi Gimbel's bio can be found here: https://cbisd.org/about/clergy/…

Join artist Tobi Kahn as he takes us on an exhilarating virtual tour of mulitple galleries in Chelsea and Tribeca featuring exhibitions of world renowned artists. Throughout the tour we will view exhibitions, virtually meet artists, curators and art historians and hear about their perspectives on the works viewed. Participants will be introduced to what is new and important in the art world. The goal of the tour is for participants to view art critically. Tobi Kahn’s gallery tours were…

Why do all religions have a holiday in the dead of winter? When was the first Chanukah ever celebrated? And how does this explain the talmudic debate over the candles we light? Exploring the most mythic of Jewish holidays through the Bible and Apocrypha, Talmud and New Testament. Gila Fine is a teacher of Aggada at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, exploring the tales of the Talmud through philosophy, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, and pop-culture. She is also a faculty…

Wednesdays mornings from 10:00-10:45 am   Give yourself the gift of calm. Join Julie Potiker for this grounding way to start the day and move from a place of fear to a place of calm. In these forty-five-minute mindfulness sessions, you will experience bringing your attention to the present moment without judgment. For past sessions, visit: https://blubrry.com/balancedmind/ About Julie: Julie Potiker is a mindfulness expert with extensive teacher training in a variety of tools and methods, including Mindful Self-Compassion. Through her…

Join Rabbi Gimbel for a class that will cover both the depth and breadth of our Shabbat prayers. Together, we will uncover how we pray, why we pray each prayer, and what we are meant to get out of the t’filah (prayer) experience. We also will discover various musical and textual interpretations of our prayers, some you likely have never heard! This class is not just for beginners! All learners are welcome! Rabbi Gimbel's bio can be found here: https://cbisd.org/about/clergy/…

During research on Chana Orloff's sculpture from 1919, a photograph was discovered in which she is recorded together with another woman and a young man (and probably another person who took the picture) in the living room of her home. They look smiling, relaxed and smartly dressed for going out together. The photo ignited Sophia Berry's curiosity, which led her on a detective journey and research for its traces. Many questions arose: Who are the other people in the picture?…