Programs
Courses: Academic Year 2012–2013
Undergraduate Courses
Philosophy of Law: Civic vs. Religious Identity
Love and Hate
Law: Jewish and Western Perspectives
RIETS Course
Straus Semikha Seminar on Judaism, Just War, and National Security:
The purpose of the seminar is to consider the similarities and
differences between Jewish and Western approaches to the subjects of justice,
law, war and terrorism, and to ponder thereby how Jewish tradition would approach
the critical national security questions of our age. In so doing, we will discuss the following
questions: What is Judaism’s notion of
justice, national sovereignty and international law? What is the difference, for the halakha,
between tzedek and mishpat?
What can Jewish scholars learn from some of the most influential
classical and modern texts about war, politics and foreign affairs? What role should religious leaders in general,
and rabbanim in particular, play in
debates in America and Israel about national security?
The seminar will be overseen by Rabbi Soloveichik, and will feature
visiting scholars who have written on the subjects under discussion.
These visitors will include poskim, American and Israeli public intellectuals, national security and
foreign policy experts, and jurists.
Public Events
“Great Conversations" on Religion and Democracy Building on the Theme of Biblical Ideas and American Democracy
The Straus Center hosts “Great Conversations” featuring prominent figures in public life, who, in an interview with Rabbi Soloveichik, address questions regarding faith and democracy in an extended discussion. So far, the Center has hosted Senator Joseph Lieberman, British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, former United States Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Mayor Cory Booker, and Professor Alan Dershowitz.
Shabbat and Weekend Events
The Straus Center organizes a series of lectures and panels in Jewish communities throughout North America featuring the director of the Straus Center as well as other rabbis, theologians, and academics. These lectures feature, each in its own way, the bridging of Jewish thought and the Western intellectual tradition. On Shabbatot and/or Sundays, audiences are asked to engage disciplines such as history, economics, politics, philosophy, and literature from a perspective grounded in Torah. Along with the lectures, further reading on the subjects addressed are distributed to the community, so that members of these communities can continue to engage the subjects addressed over Shabbat.
Subjects include:
- Jefferson, Adams and the Jews
- What if Shylock Came to Bet Din?: The Merchant of Venice Revisited
- The Talmudic Marriage of Henry VIII
- Lord Jakobovits and Margaret Thatcher: The Story of a Philosophical Friendship
- The Scandalous Yichus of the Jewish Messiah
- Locusts, Giraffes and the Meaning of Kashrut
- Can Hate Be a Virtue?
- A Nation Under God: Jews, Christians and the American Public Square
- The Return of the King: J. R. R. Tolkien and Jewish Messianism
- Yiddish: Metaphysics of a Mameloshn
Book Projects
The Straus Center is currently overseeing the preparation, composition, and publication of several books that can have an important impact on the intellectual formation of religious Jews as well as all serious students of the Jewish intellectual tradition. Subjects include Jewish theology, the engagement by prominent Torah figures of academic disciplines, and the influence of biblical ideas on the development of American public life. Each one of these books, in its own way, will not just to deepen the reader’s understanding of Judaism but also illustrate how Jewish ideas have, and can continue to, profoundly impact the world.