The Congregation Emanu-El

Rabbi Kushner will lead the study of one of the great manuals of personal Jewish religious practice of all time, The Testament of the Ball Shem Tov, and use it as a way to understand and heighten the spiritual dimension of our own lives. First appearing in 1793, (and probably written by his student, Rabbi Dov Baer of Mezritch) Tzavaat haRivash offers one hundred thirty, paragraph-long teachings designed to help the reader Þnd the sacred dimension to increasingly mundane places, times, and deeds. Based on a remarkably sophisticated psychological model yet presented in deceptively simple terms, Tzavaat haRivash often reads like a contemporary self-help book. We will use the new Kehot Publication Society English translation (1998) and have a few original Hebrew editions also available. We will explore such questions as: What does it mean to be a religious man? Can spiritually be masculine? What is a Jewish mystical experience? and, of course, whether Jewish men should be allowed to operate power tools.

The Congregation Emanu-El, 2 Lake Street, San Francisco, CA
425.751.2535 |  website