Valley Beit Midrash

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Natan Margalit

Please note event times are listed in PST

ABOUT THE EVENT:

Either/Or dilemmas such as Universal versus Tribal, Us versus Them, Culture versus Nature, and more only keep us stuck in conflict and confusion. But Judaism's core mode of thought is not either/or, it's nested, fractal and leads us to the kinds of both/and solutions that we need today.  We'll explore the ways that Jewish wisdom of nestedness in our traditions, rituals and texts can lead us to hold the complexity of Jewishness and universal values, of human progress and caring for the natural world,  and of finding the balance between individual freedom and communal bonds.  

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Natan Margalit was raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. As a young adult he lived for twelve years in Israel and received rabbinic ordination at The Jerusalem Seminary in 1990. He earned a Ph.D. in Talmud from UC Berkeley in 2001. Natan has taught at Bard College, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College. He is currently the Dean of Faculty and a member of the Va’ad (steering committee and core faculty) of the Aleph Ordination Program, and serves as chair of their Rabbinic Texts department. Natan is the author of The Pearl and the Flame: A Journey into Jewish Wisdom and Ecological Thinking. He is the founder of Organic Torah, fostering holistic thinking about Judaism, environment and society, which is a program of Aleph: Alliance for Renewal.