ENROLLMENT FOR FALL 2021 IS NOW CLOSED
Leadership in a Time of Wandering: Core Texts and Ideas for a Desert Generation
Dan Libenson
Tuesdays - 12 Classes
3 pm Eastern - Starts Oct 5
Course Description:
This course offers a deep dive into the story of Moses and the People of Israel, supplemented by other texts from the Bible and the Talmud, as a way of building confidence in reading and making contemporary meaning of ancient Jewish texts. The course also will reveal powerful Jewish wisdom about the kind of leadership we need during times of uncertainty, chaos, and upheaval—that is, times like ours.
Why do we have Jewish texts at all? That is, why did our ancestors and/or God bother to put things into writing?
Some believe that the primary motivation was conservative: to increase the likelihood that future generations would do various things “the right way.” And it’s true that sometimes that is how Jews have related to Jewish texts. But just as often, we have used the static words of Jewish texts as springboards to justify dynamic changes.
The truth is that Jewish texts have played different functions over the past 2,500 years or so, depending on what Jews needed and wanted from them in different eras. We happen to be living in a time of great instability and change—in both world history and Jewish history—and that might mean that we need to search for and find new (or “old-new”) ways to relate to Jewish texts that are right for our time and helpful to us today.
In this course, using the Bible’s story texts about the experiences of God, Moses, and the People of Israel in the Sinai Wilderness as our primary sources, as well as other ancient texts and contemporary sources about leadership and innovation, we will consider together whether the Torah contains within it wisdom and even a handbook for navigating periods of wandering in the wilderness and whether and how we can deploy that wisdom in our own time as we navigate between the previous version of Judaism and the next.
Major Course Objectives:
1. Develop increased confidence in reading a Jewish text—from the Torah, elsewhere in the Bible, the Talmud, or elsewhere—and making meaning of it. (This is different from “knowing what it means” – part of what we want to explore is what “meaning” means and who decides what a Jewish text means.)
2. Understand the story of Moses and the People of Israel in the Wilderness as a mythic story about leadership during periods of transition and uncertainty. Consider whether there is specifically “Jewish wisdom” about leadership in such times, which is especially important in our time, as we seem to be a generation in the Wilderness between versions of Judaism.
3. Feel increasingly confident and emboldened to use Jewish texts as part of imagining and/or arguing for changes and/or leading others in new directions in the contemporary practice of Judaism.
Want to know more before registering?
Join us for an information session!
Cost and Registration
This course is available at a sliding scale cost $299, $399 or $499.
If you can afford the full price, we hope you will choose that option, which allows us to continue to offer lower rates and scholarships to those who otherwise would not be able to access this learning because of financial barriers.
To ensure the accessibility of these courses without devaluing our teaching staff, the cost may be split into instalments paid across the duration of the course. You will be given the choice to split your costs and set up a direct debit when you register.
Meet Dan
Dan Libenson is the founder and president of the Institute for the Next Jewish Future, of which jewishLIVE is a project. He is also the co-host of the Judaism Unbound podcast. Dan was Executive Director of the University of Chicago Hillel for six years and Director of New Initiatives at Harvard Hillel for three years. He is a 2009 AVI CHAI Fellow and has also received the Richard M. Joel Exemplar of Excellence award, Hillel International's highest professional honor. In 2010, Dan was named a Jewish Chicagoan of the Year by Chicago Jewish News. Dan attended Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude and was an articles editor of the Harvard Law Review. Dan has published articles in Ha'aretz, The New York Jewish Week, Zeek, eJewishPhilanthropy, and elsewhere, and he is the translator of The Orchard by Israeli novelist Yochi Brandes and the translation editor of The Secret Book of Kings by the same author. Dan spent five years as a law professor after clerking for Judge Michael Boudin on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.