Tag Archives: Rabbi Israel Zoberman

Sukkot: Thanksgiving & Remembrance

Sukkot is one of the most joyful festivals on the Jewish calendar. Occurring shortly after the “Days of Awe” of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Sukkot is a week-long thanksgiving for the fall harvest, which in Israel is usually completed in September.1 The holiday also commemorates God’s protection of the Israelites during the Exodus and the forty years of wandering in the desert. But what can an ancient holiday that most non-Jews have never heard of teach Christians today, and what is it about Sukkot that Rabbi Meir Soloveichik posits “speaks profoundly to the moral and spiritual challenges of our time”?2

The Regent University Library and the School of Divinity invite the CBN and Regent communities to join us for this special event. Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman, founder of Temple Lev Tikvah and senior rabbi scholar at Eastern Shore Chapel Episcopal Church, will explain the meaning and significance of Sukkot and its place in the liturgical year. There will also be traditional Sukkot Scriptural readings in Hebrew and English.
For more information and a link to register for in-person and online attendance, see our Sukkot event page.

1For a concise account of the annual agricultural cycle in Israel and its relationship to the cycle of Jewish holidays, see Les Saidel, “The Circle of a Year,” The Jerusalem Post, September 25, 2019, https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/the-circle-of-a-year-603008

2Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, “Sacred Time Ep 4: Sukkot – The Eternal Lulav and Etrog,” YouTube Video, 35:15, October 5, 2018, https://youtu.be/3zExi3hCwN8?si=gqAOJy7IpAbbRZ3O

 

Book Discussion with Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman

Yehuda_Amichai_2.inddYehuda Amichai (1924-2000) wrote in colloquial Hebrew and is widely regarded as the finest poet of modern Israel. Many of Amichai’s poems are remarkably accessible, vivid in their evocation of landscape and historical predicament. He also created some of the most moving love poems written in any language in the past two generations: some exuberant, some erotic, and some suffused with sadness over separation.

Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman has selected eight poems for our conversation from the 2015 collection edited by Robert Alter. For your own free copy of the poems, contact Harold Henkel at harohen@regent.edu.

The discussion will be held on Friday, April 21 at 1:00 in the Library Conference Room. Distance students and faculty are invited to join in via Google Hangouts.

Over the years, Rabbi Zoberman’s annual spring visit has become an anticipated event at the Library. He is a scholar, teacher, and raconteur about Israel, history, and literature. This year, you need read only eight poems to qualify as prepared, so don’t miss this cultural opportunity!

Book Discussion: A Pigeon and a Boy, by Meir Shalev

207333 U.S. edition, 2007

Meir Shalev is one of Israel’s most acclaimed novelists, whose works have been translated into more than twenty languages. The subjects of A Pigeon and a Boy are two of the most powerful human desires: love and home.

The title of the novel refers to a courier pigeon handler serving in the fledgling Israeli army during the War for Independence in 1948. For the author, the courier pigeon becomes a symbol of the human longing to return to one’s home. A Pigeon and a Boy intertwines and connects the stories of two couples: one from the 1940s and one from contemporary Jerusalem.

Original Israeli edition, 2006 Original Israeli edition, 2006

To help us explore this captivating work, Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman will lead our discussion. Rabbi Zoberman grew up in Israel in the 1950s and will provide insights into life in Israel in the early years following Independence. As readers who have attended previous Book Club discussions with him can attest, he is a terrific scholar, teacher and story-teller.

The discussion will take place on Thursday, April 14 at 1:00 in the Library Conference Room. Distance students and faculty are invited to join in via Google Hangouts.

For information about future book discussions at the Library, see the Library Book Club webpage.

Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman to lead discussion on October 30

On Thursday, October 30, Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman will be at the Library to lead a discussion of Jews and Words, by Amos Oz and Fania Oz-Salzberger. Amos Oz is perhaps the most famous living Israeli author. Newsweek has described him as “a kind of Zionist Orwell: a complex man obsessed with simple decency and determined above all to tell the truth, regardless of whom it offends.” Fania Oz-Salzberger, Amos Oz’s daughter, is a professor of history at the University of Haifa School of Law and Center for German and European Studies.

In their book, father and daughter tell the tales behind Judaism’s most enduring names, adages, disputes, texts and quips. These words, they argue, comprise the chain connecting Abraham with the Jews of every subsequent generation.

As readers who have attended previous Book Club discussions with Rabbi Zoberman can attest, he is a terrific scholar, teacher, and raconteur. The Library is pleased to have him with us again to enrich our understanding of Jewish history and culture.

The discussion will take place at 1:00 pm in the Library Gallery. All of the Library’s copies of the book are currently checked out, but Yale University Press has some generous excerpts available on Google Books.

Distance students and faculty welcome!

Distance students and faculty can join the discussion live via Google Hangouts, Google’s free videoconferencing software. Here is our permanent link for all Book Club events:

https:plus.google.comhangouts_eventc0lnc83s5ok7tecuqdcnjg0mcno?authuser=0&eid=100028809078157626561&hl=en

The first time you click on the link, Google will prompt you to install the Hangouts plug-in. Once that’s done, the same link will take you to the Book Club discussion each month.

For more information about the Library Book Club and future events, visit our webpage.

National Library Week 2013 Round-up

From April 15 to April 19, the University Library joined with other libraries across the nation to celebrate the 55th annual National Library Week. We observed this banner week on the cultural calendar of our country with five events:

1. Faculty Recommends Poster Series. The Library continued its National Library Week tradition of offering reading and research recommendations from Regent Faculty. This year five faculty members as well as Vice President for Marketing, Sherri Miller, offered their choices: