Making Enemies into Friends

This lecture will be an articulation of the Torah’s mandates toward encountering our enemies and transforming them into friends, including the exception for the category of Amalek, and the reasons for this.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Rabbi Mel Gottlieb, Ph.D is the President of the Academy for Jewish Religion, California. Ordained at Yeshiva University, he holds a doctorate in Mythology/Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute where he has taught Myth, Literature and Religious Studies; Jung and Freud, and Kabbalah. He has also been on the faculty of Yeshiva University, Columbia University, and USC School of Social Work. His essays have appeared in national journals such as Psychological Perspectives, Ideas and Ideals, and Shma: the books Illuminating Letters and King David’s Journey into Wholeness and publications such as the Huffington Post. A dynamic and engaging speaker, he is a frequent lecturer at the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles as well as synagogues of all denominations throughout Southern California. Rabbi Gottlieb is the former Director of Hillel at MIT, and Princeton, and the Co-Founder of Claremont Lincoln University. He has served as a congregational Rabbi in Los Angeles at The Westwood Village Synagogue and Kehillat Ma’arav. He was appointed by the Mayor of Santa Monica to the Homeless Task Force of Santa Monica and helped to create low cost housing and training for those in need of employment; Rabbi Gottlieb has also been the recipient of a Ford Foundation Grant for community organization work, and is a member of the Jewish-Muslim Forum in Los Angeles.
Rabbi Gottlieb currently teaches Hasidic Commentaries on the Torah, Kabbalah and Consciousness, Mussar as a Psycho-Spiritual Growth Path, and Rav Kook and the Mystical Path at the Academy for Jewish Religion, CA.. He has also been a highly respected a psychotherapist in Los Angeles in private practice for over 25 years. Rabbi Gottlieb has inspired countless students with his enthusiasm for Jewish learning and deeply believes in the emphasis that the Academy for Jewish Religion, Ca. places on spirituality as a major component of religious training and teaching. He is married to Dr. Annette Gottlieb and they have four children.

LM