Instructor: Rabbi Nehemia Polen, Ph.D.
Professor of Jewish Thought at Hebrew College
Dates: 5 Tuesdays, 2/7, 2/14, 2/21, 2/28, and 3/14; make-up 3/21.
Time: 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Cost: $190, generous financial aid is available
Location: Zoom
Hosted by: Temple Beth Zion, Brookline
This seminar introduces biblical and rabbinic sources for gender in the divine realm and androgyny; the symbolism of sun and moon; Malkhut and receptivity; masculine and feminine potencies and the drama of divine unification; carnal knowledge and the body of engenderment; Shekhinah’s liminality, exile, and exaltation; and the symbolism of daughter/wife/mother. As we read primary texts (in translation), we will also consider the views of contemporary scholars such as Arthur Green, Moshe Idel, Tsippi Kauffman, Charles Mopsik, Biti Roi, and Elliot Wolfson on the significance of gender imaging of the divine.
Nehemia Polen is a leading expert in Hasidism and Jewish thought. A widely published author, his books include The Holy Fire: The Teachings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto; a translation of Malkah Shapiro’s The Rebbe’s Daughter: Memoir of a Hasidic Childhood, a project that originated in Polen’s research as a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow and recipient of a National Jewish Book Award; Filling Words With Light: Hasidic and Mystical Reflections on Jewish Prayer; and From Tiberias, With Love: A Collection of Tiberian Hasidism, Volume I: Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk. Polen holds a doctorate from Boston University, where he studied with and served as a teaching fellow for Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel. Prior to his career in Jewish academia, Polen served for 23 years as a congregational rabbi.