Selichot Study
Saturday, September 13, 8:00 pm
The Rabbi Mark Dov Shapiro Memorial Lecture: “Neder: On Jewish Commitments”

Michael Marmur is Associate Professor of Jewish Theology at Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem. Until July 2018, he served as the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost at Hebrew Union College, having previously been Dean of the Jerusalem campus. After some 20 years in administrative capacities, he now concentrates his energies on teaching and writing. Born and raised in England and educated at the University of Oxford, Michael made aliyah to Israel in 1984. While studying for an M.A. in Ancient Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he completed his studies in the Israel Rabbinic Program of Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, and was ordained in 1992. For six years following his ordination, he worked as rabbi and teacher at the Leo Baeck Education Center in Haifa. Michael Marmur served for three years as Chair of the Board of Rabbis for Human Rights. Known as a masterful teacher, like his father before him, Professor Marmur has lectured and taught courses in several countries around the world.  He is the author of many books, including his most recent, “Living the Letters:  An Alphabet of Emerging Jewish Thought.”

“Living the Letters:  An Alphabet of Emerging Jewish Thought”
In this work, Michael Marmur employs the structure of the Hebrew alphabet to set out elements of an emerging Jewish theology, presenting a case for the urgent relevance of Jewish life at a time of deepening rupture and accelerating change. He presents core components of a theory and practice of contemporary Judaism. The Hebrew alphabet has long beguiled and preoccupied Biblical authors and liturgical poets, rationalists and mystics, conservatives and radicals. It has served as a locus of theological speculation, an engine of creativity and a recurrent motif throughout the cycle of life, from childhood instruction to graveside recitation. For each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Marmur proposes a concept, gleaned from theology, philosophy, ritual, politics, community and other fields. Readers are invited to combine and deploy them in imagining a Judaism of tomorrow.

Interview about the book here:
https://huc.edu/news/people-of-the-book-faculty-michael-marmur-uses-the-alphabet-to-ponder-questions-of-contemporary-jewish-life/

Available for purchase here:
https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/living-the-letters-an-alphabet-of-emerging-jewish-thought/9783031810404.html