Temple Beth-El of Great Neck, the recognized home for sophisticated intellectual Judaism on Long Island, will present a new Tuesday night symposium series, The Land of Israel in the Talmud, with guest scholar Alyssa Gray on Oct. 15, 22 and 29 from 7 to 8:30 p.m.
The community is welcome to attend this enriching series through Temple Beth-El’s Miriam & Moses Center for Pluralistic Adult Jewish Learning either in person or online.
The class will focus on three aspects of the Babylonian Talmud’s engagement with the land of Israel: how it portrays the past, present and future of the geographical land; its portrayal of relationships between Babylonian rabbis and those of the land of Israel; and a couple of key theological and halakhic differences between the two rabbinic centers.
Gray is the Emily S. and Rabbi Bernard H. Mehlman Chair in Rabbinics as well as Professor of Codes and Responsa Literature at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City.
She received her PhD with distinction in Talmud and Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary, an LLM in Mishpat Ivri (Jewish law) from the Hebrew University Faculty of Law and a juris doctor from the Columbia University School of Law.
Her scholarly interests are the development of Talmudic literature, the history of Jewish law and literary studies of post-Talmudic legal writings. She authored the books “Charity in Rabbinic Judaism: Atonement, Rewards, and Righteousness” and “A Talmud in Exile: The Influence of Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah on the Formation of Bavli Avodah Zarah.”
The Judaic scholar has been a Fellow of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and a visiting professor at Yale University and the Jewish Theological Seminary. She is a co-editor of AJS Review: The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies and sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Jewish Ethics and HUC Press.
Temple Beth-El, a leader in shaping the future of pluralistic Judaism on the western North Shore, has served the community for more than 95 years at 5 Old Mill Road. Learn more at www.tbegreatneck.org, 516-487-0900 or info@tbegreatneck.org.
