Date:
January 11, 2010 - 7:30pm - 9:00pm
This week's class will be taught by Rabbi Micha'el Rosenberg, and it is entitled, "Inside, Outside, Jews, non-Jews, and In Between: Thinking About Community Through the Lens of the Eruv"
Although the explicit purpose of an eruv is to permit the transfer of goods into and out of buildings on Shabbat, it also has the function of defining the boundaries of a "Jewish neighborhood." Rabbinic literature appears to be aware of this fact already, given its concern with the effects of non-Jews and non-Rabbinic Jews on the ability of a community to establish an eruv. Building on the insights of Prof. Charlotte Fonrobert, we will analyze passages from the sixth chapter of Eruvin dealing with these boundary questions in order to understand better what Rabbinic texts have to say about the dangers and benefits of living in religiously mixed communities.
Rabbi Micha'el Rosenberg is a faculty member at Mechon Hadar and teaches Tanakh at Yeshivat Hadar. He is the rabbi of the Fort Tryon Jewish Center, an independent egalitarian synagogue in the Washington Heights section of New York City. An alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship program, he received his rabbinical ordination from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel following his studies in the kollel halakhah at Yeshivat Ma’aleh Gilboa and is currently a doctoral candidate in Talmud and Rabbinic Literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He has taught Bible, Talmud, and halakhah in a wide variety of settings, including the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education, JTS, the National Havurah Institute, and the Northwoods Kollel and Beit Midrash of Ramah Wisconsin.
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