Violence, Morality and Megillat Esther

REGISTRATION CLOSED, WALK UPS WELCOME- ABOUT THIS LECTURE: The book of Esther concludes with a paroxysm of violence perpetrated by the Jews of Persia against their Persian attackers. Over the centuries many have been troubled by the unfolding massacre and the absence of moral restraint, especially as it is featured in a book of sacred scripture. This seminar will contextualize the violence, interpret its symbolic and reparative significance and, ultimately, reclaim the moral high ground.

ABOUT THIS SPEAKER: Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller is a faculty member at Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. He worked with students and faculty as the Executive Director of the Yitzhak Rabin Hillel Center for Jewish Life at UCLA for 40 years, before accepting the position of Director Emeritus, which he now holds.

Chaim was ordained at Yeshiva University where he completed a Masters in Rabbinic Literature. He has lectured in the Departments of Sociology and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA, and in the Department of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University. He is a faculty member of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and of the Wexner Heritage Foundation. Chaim was the founding director of the Hartman Fellowship for Hillel Professionals and a founding member of Americans for Peace Now. He was also a  rabbinic consultant to Barbra Streisand during the making of the film Yentl.

In 2014 Chaim initiated a fact finding mission for non-Jewish student leaders to Israel and the Palestine Authority which is now offered on sixty campuses across the country. The International Hillel Center has granted Chaim the Hillel Professional Recognition Award “for blending the love of Jewish tradition with the modern intellectual approach of the university.”

LM