Filter by Category
Virtual Events
The Shabbat Effect: Jewish Wisdom for Growth and Transformation (Salt Lake City)
A hybrid event presentation (in-person and virtual) by Alan Morinis
EVENT CO-SPONSORED BY: Congregation Kol Ami, United Jewish Federation of Utah
ABOUT THE EVENT:
The topic of this session will be the forthcoming book, The Shabbat Effect. The point of the book is to outline how observing Shabbat with an intention to develop certain inner traits that are germane to a Shabbat practice will prove useful all 7 days of the week, and is a step toward the ultimate human purpose of becoming whole and holy.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Alan Morinis received his doctorate from Oxford University which he attended on a Rhodes Scholarship. He is one the leading lights in the revival of the Jewish spiritual tradition of Mussar and is the author of Climbing Jacob’s Ladder (2002), Everyday Holiness (2007), With Heart in Mind (2014) and now The Shabbat Effect (2026).
He is a student of Rabbi Yechiel Yitzchok Perr, zt”l, and in 2004 founded The Mussar Institute which has grown to become the world’s leading provider of contemporary Mussar resources and instruction, offering courses, facilitator training, curricula for congregations and organizations, special events, speakers, and retreats.
Alan is a sought-after speaker and spiritual teacher who will be on tour with The Shabbat Effect in early 2026.
The Shabbat Effect: Jewish Wisdom for Growth and Transformation (Denver)
A hybrid event presentation (in-person and virtual) by Alan Morinis
EVENT CO-SPONSORED BY: Temple Emanuel
ABOUT THE EVENT:
The topic of this session will be the forthcoming book, The Shabbat Effect. The point of the book is to outline how observing Shabbat with an intention to develop certain inner traits that are germane to a Shabbat practice will prove useful all 7 days of the week, and is a step toward the ultimate human purpose of becoming whole and holy.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Alan Morinis received his doctorate from Oxford University which he attended on a Rhodes Scholarship. He is one the leading lights in the revival of the Jewish spiritual tradition of Mussar and is the author of Climbing Jacob’s Ladder (2002), Everyday Holiness (2007), With Heart in Mind (2014) and now The Shabbat Effect (2026).
He is a student of Rabbi Yechiel Yitzchok Perr, zt”l, and in 2004 founded The Mussar Institute which has grown to become the world’s leading provider of contemporary Mussar resources and instruction, offering courses, facilitator training, curricula for congregations and organizations, special events, speakers, and retreats.
Alan is a sought-after speaker and spiritual teacher who will be on tour with The Shabbat Effect in early 2026.
What Animals Teach Us about Families: Kinship and Species in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature
A virtual event presentation by Professor Beth Berkowitz
ABOUT THE EVENT:
Family separation due to war, migration, and incarceration is a major public concern, but what about the animal families routinely separated by human agriculture and development? What is the impact on them, on us, and on the planet? Moving beyond debates about the ethics of animal consumption to focus instead on animal intimate lives, "What Animals Teach Us about Families: Kinship and Species in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature" takes on the anthropocene and big animal agriculture to consider the fragmented animal families left behind in their wake. In this talk, I read the four “animal family” laws of the Bible alongside their rabbinic interpreters from ancient times to today, narrating how biblical writers and readers conceived of and constituted the ties that bind humans to animals and that bind animals to each other. Through the lens of biblical and rabbinic literature, this book reveals the combination of concern, cruelty, and curiosity that we humans bring to animal lives. My goal is not to restore family values so much as reimagine family to include new forms of life and alternative modes of kinship.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Beth A. Berkowitz is Ingeborg Rennert Chair of Jewish Studies and Professor in the Department of Religion at Barnard College. She is the author of Execution and Invention: Death Penalty Discourse in Early Rabbinic and Christian Cultures (Oxford University Press, 2006); Defining Jewish Difference: From Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge University Press, 2012); Animals and Animality in the Babylonian Talmud (Cambridge University Press, 2018); and What Animals Teach Us about Families: Kinship and Species in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature (University of California Press, forthcoming 2026). She is co-editor of Religious Studies and Rabbinics: A Conversation (Routledge, 2017). Her area of specialization is classical rabbinic literature, and her interests include animal studies, Jewish difference, rabbinic legal authority, and Bible reception history.