Jewish Ideas to Change the World
Religion & Spirituality:Judaism
A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Adina Lewittes
Event Co-Sponsored by Temple Emanuel
About the Event:
Cultural and environmental trends of the 21st century are raising important challenges to long-accepted notions of Kevod Hamet (“respect for the deceased”) in the way we handle bodies after death. Are our assumptions around the requirements for burial grounded in our sacred texts? Is burial really a mitzvah? Is cremation absolutely prohibited? Can alternatives to traditional practices live within a halakhic (Jewish legal) framework?
About the Speaker:
Rabbi Adina Lewittes founded Sha’ar, a northern NJ/NYC-based, values-driven Jewish community oriented around the call to societal, environmental, and spiritual sustainability. For nearly twenty years, Sha’ar provided multiple gateways into Jewish life exemplified by a commitment to inclusiveness, diversity, innovation, scholarship, excellence, and collaboration.
Adina recently served as the Scholar in Residence at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in NYC, a synagogue renowned for its commitment to social justice and spiritual activism. Adina is also a member of the senior rabbinic faculty of the Shalom Hartman Institute, and she sits on the Board of Trustees of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School and on the Board of Keshet. She also serves as an adjunct faculty member of the Rabbinical School at JTS where she teaches contemporary Jewish Law.
Previously, Adina served as the Assistant Dean of the Rabbinical School at JTS, and founded a synagogue in Englewood, New Jersey, modeling shared leadership and collective communal responsibility. Adina regularly enjoys speaking engagements in the US and Canada and publishing essays on topics including Jewish identity, modern Jewish law, leadership, Jewish innovation, sexual/gender diversity, multifaith/multiheritage marriage and engagement, and contemporary Jewish spirituality. She is married to Andi Lewittes and has four children, two stepchildren, and one incredible dog.
The God of Possibilities
Darkness Will Envelop Me: Meditations on Chanuka and Winter
Nothing But the Truth? Balancing an Embrace of Tradition with Personal Integrity
Responding to Extremism in the New Israeli Government Coalition: Interview With Rabbi Danny Landes
Speaking Religious Truth to Political Power
A Journey of Discovery and Truth-Telling with Letty Cottin Pogrebin
Reading Vayikra With Our Children: Strategies, Challenges, and Opportunities
The World in Which God Placed Humans
The Other Oven in the Talmud – How a Halakhic Discussion Sparked a Great Soul
Rethinking Gender and Power in Jewish Texts
Nadav and Avihu: A Pastoral Study in Bereavement
What is the Jewish Future in America? - Rabbi David Wolpe
Antisemitism in America: An Interview with Rabbi David Wolpe
Shalom Aleichem: A Model for Working With Development Trauma
Interview: Doug Seserman, Americans for Ben-Gurion University
“Shomea K'oneh” (Hearing Legally Counts as Speaking): Creating a Community Which is Inclusive of the Blind, the Deaf, and the Infirm
God’s Prayer: The Central Image of Selihot
Staying Human – Can Judaism Speak to the Issues Raised by Artificial Intelligence?
Nature and Revelation: What the Jewish Calendar Teaches Us About Their Relationship
Repentance as the Transformation of Self Through the Call of the Other
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Rav Gershon Ribner
For Heaven’s Sake
Unorthodox
18 Questions, 40 Israeli Thinkers
Unpacking Israeli History