How do we understand the role of God in the human pursuit of justice? In this session we will explore a number of key Jewish mystical concepts relating to this question. How might the esoteric concepts of “tzimtzum,” “kelipot,” “nitzoztot,” and” tikkun” (a term that is overused but understudied) help us create a Jewish theology of activism? Can the teachings of Kabbalah and Hasidism help us wrestle with the perennial issue of theodicy and the work of creating a just and compassionate world?

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) is one of the most celebrated Jewish personalities of the twentieth century. He is remembered as towering intellectual and an impassioned social activist. But how did Heschel understand the relationship between these realms of his life? How did his theology impact his work for peace and justice and how did his experiences in the streets shape his religious worldview? Please join us as we explore the life and work of this extraordinary spiritual activist, asking what of his legacy remains compelling for us today.

The biblical figures of Amos, Isaiah, and others are great models of what Abraham Joshua Heschel called “moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.” But after the destruction of the Second Temple, the early rabbis asserted that the age of prophecy had ended. Interestingly, while subsequent Jewish thinkers and leaders rarely challenged this rabbinic assertion overtly, they continued to study the narratives of the prophets carefully, claiming different elements of the prophetic mantle for themselves. How have Jewish figures adopted the model of the prophet in the past? What can we learn from the prophets today?