Thursday, October 22, 2020
Rabbi/author (still) believes Hasidic ideas key to vibrant modern Judaism
Rabbi Art Green is a scholar of worldwide renown, the author of dozens of books, one of the world's leading experts on Hasidic Judaism and perhaps the only person ever to lead two different American rabbinical schools. Currently, he serves as rector of the rabbinical school at Hebrew College in Newton Centre, Massachusetts.
But he's also a self-described seeker, preoccupied for decades now with crafting a Jewish spiritual vocabulary that can speak to modern Jews living in liberal Western societies. At 79, Green believes that vocabulary can be found in neo-Hasidism, an updated version of practices associated with the Jewish revivalist movement that swept Eastern Europe in the 17th century.
In January, Stanford University Press will publish "The Light of the Eyes," Green's translation of a series of Torah discourses by Rabbi Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl, an 18th-century Hasidic master also known as the Me'or Aynayim. Later this month, Green will be offering his first public class on Zoom based on the book.
Green spoke with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in August about his forthcoming book, how Hasidic Jews became conservatives and the spiritual wisdom necessary to cope with a roiling political environment.
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