A hybrid event (in person & accessible virtually) with Rabbi Joseph Telushkin in Phoenix
HAMMERMAN FAMILY LECTURE
EVENT CO-SPONSORED BY:
Temple Solel
ABOUT THE EVENT:
One of the sad things that has happened to Jewish life in modern times is that people define “religious” solely in terms of ritual observance (one who keeps Shabbat or Kashrut is religious, one who doesn’t is not), as if ethics in Judaism were an extracurricular activity, nice, but not very important. In this talk, based on Rabbi Telushkin’s award-winning book, A Code of Jewish Ethics: Volume 1: You Shall be Holy, he examines, along with other issues as well, four Jewish values and how they apply in daily life. The first is forgiveness; Telushkin delineates when Jewish law considers forgiveness obligatory, when optional, and when forbidden, and shows how and when to apply these perspectives in our daily behavior. A second area examined in this speech are the Jewish laws concerning anger and how to express it fairly. At a time when many families and friendships have been torn asunder, Telushkin, in addition to examining teachings from the Torah on anger, he also offers the one rule by which you can guarantee that no matter how angry you get at another you will never say something that will destroy a relationship. The talk also considers Jewish perspectives on humility (the only virtue the Torah explicitly attributes to Moses), and examines why self-esteem may be as morally necessary as humility itself. This lecture will not only challenge and broaden one intellectually, it offers very specific advice and guidelines on how to transform and elevate one’s life.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, named by Talk Magazine as one of the 50 best speakers in the United States, is the author of Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History. The most widely selling book on Judaism of the past three decades, Jewish Literacy has been hailed by leading figures in all the major movements of Judaism, and has been published in a third edition.
Telushkin’s The Book of Jewish Values: A Day by Day Guide to Ethical Living was the subject of a PBS special entitled Moral Imagination that aired throughout the United States.
