Kehilat Hadar

Join us this Monday evening, March 8 at 6:30 p.m. at Yeshivat Hadar for a Community Dinner, followed by a class taught by Ram Avital Hochstein.  Dinner will be Indian food and beer, for a cost of $10 including the class. Dinner will begin at 6:30 p.m., followed by the class at 7:30 p.m. RSVPs are required for the dinner. To sign up for dinner, please email Sydney Levine sydney.levine@gmail.com by midnight on Sunday March 7.
This week's class will be taught by Avital Hochstein and it is entitled, “Can Liberty and Poverty Coexist?: A Look at Mishnah Pesahim”
We will look at the first mishnah in the tenth chapter of Pesahim. This mishnah describes a few preparations and initial rules regarding the Seder. We will ask about their fundamental aspects in general, and the roles of poverty on the one hand and freedom on the other, following how the relationship between the two plays out.
 
Avital Campbell Hochstein is rosh yeshiva at Mechon Hadar and teaches Talmud at Yeshivat Hadar. She is the former rosh kollel at the Pardes Institute. A research fellow at Mechon Shalom Hartman, she has taught Talmud for several years at both institutions and was rosh beit midrash at the new Hartman High School for Girls. She is the co-author of The Place of Women in Midrash (Yedioth Ahronoth 2008). Avital is also a founder of Kehilat Shirah Hadashah in Jerusalem.

Join us this Monday evening, February 22nd at 6:30pm at Yeshivat Hadar for our first Community Dinner, followed by a class by Rabbi Jeff Fox on what the laws of Purim can teach us about pluralism:

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.

This fall, the Hadar community will learn Massekhet Shabbat as part of its siyyum (completion) of Seder Moed. Every Monday we will hold a guided class, with havruta and discussion.  In addition to classes, we will hold an open beit midrash, complete with texts and guiding questions.