Adult Education presents:
Book Club in February
The expression “rule of law” has become very popular in today’s literature. Much of the modern world’s “rule of law” has been drawn from the “Jewish Rule of Law”, the Torah. How well do we know the Torah? We regularly read from the “Five Books of Moses” and ”Prophets”, occasionally read from the “Writings” and other books such as the Pasach Hagadah and Magilla Esther, but those documents represent only a small segment of the our law. Outside of those in the orthodox community, Jews rarely fore’ into that part of the Law recorded in the Mishnah and Talmud or the many books not included in that lineage and most know little of our law’s evolution since that time.
We commonly date the origin of the Law from the time Moses received it on Mount Sinai, but one would believe that our patriarchs had knowledge of parts of the law prior to Moses, and perhaps non-Jews such as Hamarabi had some insight. Although the origin of the Law is not discussed in the written Torah, the Talmud dates its origin to multiple millennia prior to the creation of the world, attributing to it the blue print for the creation of the world.
What is the relevance of “the total Law” today? Over the last 4000 years multiple great empires have come and gone. It is of note that the Jews, the custodian of the Law have survived. It is not unreasonable to suggest that our survival as a people is related to our relationship with the Law. It would behoove us to maintain that relationship.
To that end the BSKI Adult Education Committee is initiating a lecture series on the law, post Ezra Although many source books will be used, Berel Wein’s books “The Oral Law of Sinai” and ”Vision and Valor” will be a starting points. Rabbi Wein, one of the foremost orthodox historians is a native of Chicago IL, served in Miami Beach FL and Munci NY. He is the founder and director of The Destiny Foundation. His many books as well as his Tape series on the history of Judaism are well known. He now lives in Jerusalem. The lecture series will be initiated by pre Rabbi Stanley Krantman of St. Louis.
Rabbi Krantman received his Rabbinic Ordination from Rabbi Herzl Kaplan, Hebrew Theological College, and studied under luminaries Rabbi Aaron Soloveitchik and Reb Chayim Zimmerman. He is well known for his originality and sharp analysis of Talmudic text and his weekly Talmud lectures. He received his B.A. in Psychology and worked on his masters degree in Advertising and Journalism at Northwestern University, and is the author of a best-selling text book on resume writing and job search.
The event will be held at BSKI on February 26, 2012 at 10:00 AM in the White room.
Ralph Graff
