The Pesti Shul Calendar has been published for the first time. Please contact us (info [at] pestisul.hu) for more details if you would like to order one.
(Price of lunches and dinners: 1500 HUF, if payed before it, otherwise 1700 HUF.)
October 26., Tuesday, 18:30: Balázs Gábor: The prayer without understanding
is like the soul without the body
19:30: Dénes Gergő: Mishna Brurah - halacha in practice
October 22-23: Portuguese Sabbaton:
Friday, October 22:17.00 Kabbalat ShabatSaturday, October 23:
19.00 Portuguese dinner
20.15: Vera Lantos: The Portuguese Jewry9:00 Tefillah
11:30 Kiddush
12:00 Gábor Balázs: The image of democracy in the Medieval Jewish Philosophy, and in the thinking of Don Rabbi Itzhak Abrabanel
13:30 Lunch
15:00 Joint learning: introduction to the new acquisitions of the library of the Shul
17:00 Mincha - Seudat Shelishit - Havdalah
October 21, Thursday, 18:00: Dénes Anna: Shmirat Shabat. The women's learning circle continues studying the book of Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth.
October 14, Thursday, 19.30: Rosh Chodesh Club: "Yiddishe Mame" - in the
halakha, and beyond.
This time, the participants of the Shul's women club
discuss the sources of the matrilinear definition
of being Jewish in the halakha.
October 9. shabbat, 9:00: shabbat Breshit service, followed by lunch at 12:30. Then, Gábor Balázs presents the new acquisitions of the library: The Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg and the Midrash Rabbah.
October 8. Friday, 9:00: Simchat Torah service, followed by lunch at 12:30. Our guest was Asaf Ichilevich, the cultural attache of the Israeli Embassy.
October 7. Thursday, 9:00: Shmini Atseret service, (Mazkir / Yizkor at 10:45),
followed by lunch.
14:00: lecture of Michael Brenner: In Search of a Lost
Judaism: German Jewish Intellectuals and their Criticism of Assimilation
(in English)
17:45: Hakafoth - dance with the sifrei Torah.
October 6. Wednesday, 18:00: Erev Shmini Atseret evening service.
October 5. kedd, 23:00: Hoshana Rabba study night. Topics covered: different attitudes towards secular studies in the Jewish tradition; Maimonides on miracles; Jewish community politics in the time of the Mishna; how shall we start studying the Guide of the Perplexed?
October 2, Shabbat, 9.00: Shabbat chol ha-moed, service and lunch.
October 1, Friday, 9.00: second day of Succot, service and lunch.
September 30, Thursday, 9.00: first day of Succot, service and lunch. Evening service at 18.00.
September 29, Wednesday 18.00: Erev Succot: service and dinner
September 24-25: Yom Kippur:
18.15: Erev Yom Kippur, Kol Nidrei
Morning tefilah starts at 9.00.
Mazkir (Yizkor) at around 12.15
14.30: Andrea Sturovics: "Repent, Jews, except Elisha ben Abuya!". Is it possible to lose the possibility of repentence? (Based on the the Talmudic text)
Neila starts at 17.45
End of the fast at 19.21, followed by a joined meal.
September 23, at 19.30: Rosh Chodesh Club for women, on the halakhot of clothing and tsniut, this time ("I don't have anyyyyything to wear!!!").
September 20 and 23, at 18.00: learning Maimonides' Hilkhot Tshuva with Gábor Balázs, using the bilingual edition recently purchased.
September 18, 9.00: Shabbat Shuva service.
September 17, 9.00: Second day of Rosh ha-Shana service. At 12.00: community lunch (costs: 1500 HUF, if payed afterwards: 1700 HUF). At 13.00: lecture of Gábor Balázs on the interpretations of the Akedat Yitzhak, continuation of the last year's lecture.
September 16, 9.00: First day of Rosh ha-Shana service, followed by kiddush and tashlich. At 18.30: evening service.
September 15, 18.30: Rosh ha-Shana 5765 service
September 13 and 14, at 18.00: learning Maimonides' Hilkhot Tshuva with Gábor Balázs, using the bilingual edition recently purchased.
September 11, 23.00: Gábor Balázs: What is meant by teshuvah in the
Jewish tradition? The lecture presents the key concept of the high
holidays, the teshuva, i.e. repentence, and attempts to answer the hardest
question: how can a person really make it part of his or her spiritual and
everyday life in the 21st century?
The lecture is followed by the first slichot at midnight (24.00).
Special summer program (July, August): let us study together the Talmud (Sanhedrin) with Tamas Barasz. He has studied for two years in a yeshiva in Berlin, and he will introduce us into what yeshiva studies look like. The course starts on July 13, and is held each Tuesday from 6 p.m. in the Shul.
August 25, 6 p.m.: Lecture of Tamás Turán: The mitzvah of rebuking
the fellow in the rabbinic literature.
Tamás Turán lives with his family in Jerusalem, and he is a
research fellow at the Centre for Jewish Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Science,
as well as lecturer of rabbinic literature at the Department of Judaic Studies of the
Eötvös University. Based on texts, his lecture will present how the changing conditions
influenced the ways of performing this mitzva during history.
August 11, 6:00 p.m.: Rabbi Charles Sheer: Some Observations on the Ideology and the Personality of the Rambam (on Maimonides and secular studies; lecture in English)
July 28, 3.45 p.m.: We visit the temporary exhibition of Judaica and Hebraica at the University Library of the Eötvös University.
July 26, 7.10 p.m.: Tisha be-Av, with arucha mafseket and reading the Eicha.
July 22, 7.30 p.m.: Rosh Chodesh Club, led by Agnes Peresztegi.
July 16-18: Shabaton. Minyen on Friday night. After the Shabbat noon kiddush, lecture of Gabor Balazs on the role of discussion in Talmudic sources, followed by a lunch. Before mincha and seudat shlishit, we study Pirkei Avot from our newly purchased books.
Our regular programs, such as women programs (Shmirat Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh Club, Remembering the Past) and our weekly study groups (Talmud with Dov Levy, and Mishna Brura with Gergő Dénes), are not held during the summer break.
Director/Jewish Chaplain Emeritus at Columbia University and Barnard College
Modern Orthodoxy is indebted to the Rambam for his approach to and attitude towards "secular knowledge" and what we call "the modern world". We will examine various sources - his "tshuvot" (responsa), a letter to the scholars of Lunel, and his introduction to his "Guide" - to hear him in his own words on the following topics: the use of science and archeology in determining "halakha" (Jewish law), the necessity of mastering scientific knowledge and philosophy, and his own inner conflict regarding the conflict between Jewish and "secular" learning.
Rabbi Charles Sheer served as Jewish Chaplain at Columbia University for thirty-four years. Under his leadership, Columbia/Barnard Hillel became one of the largest and most active Hillels in the country, with over 55 student groups and projects. It won many awards from Hillel and Columbia for outstanding programming.
Rabbi Sheer has played many leadership roles on campus and in the broader Jewish community. He lectures on topics ranging from Jewish texts and thought, university life, Israel, and the interface between Jewish Tradition and modernity. Throughout his career he has taught the values of Modern Orthodoxy and a pluralistic approach to Jewish living. He was honored by Yeshiva College with the Revel Memorial Award (1994) for outstanding leadership in Religion and Religious Education, and by Columbia (1989) for his service to the University.
Rabbi Sheer was ordained at Yeshiva University in 1967. He had the privilege of studying under Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and was a Kollel Fellow for advanced Talmud study for three years. He received his MA (1967) in Talmudic Literature from the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies at YU, and was awarded a Gottesman Fellowship for three years during his graduate studies. He received his BA from Yeshiva College (1965), was on Dean?s List and won graduation awards for excellence in history, Talmud, personal character, and service keys from the College and the Yeshiva.
After his ordination he served as Associate Rabbi at the Riverdale Jewish Center under Rabbi Irving Greenberg. During those years he was a Fellow at Yeshiva University in a research program headed by Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein.
Rabbi Sheer served on the executive boards of the Rabbinic Alumni of Yeshiva University and the Rabbinical Council of America; he is on the Advisory Council of Edah. He serves on the boards of SAR Academy and Riverdale Jewish Center, and has served on various commissions of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies. During his student days at Yeshiva University he was one of the founders of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. He later served on the boards of the Greater New York Council for Soviet Jewry and the National Conference on Soviet Jewry.
Rabbi Sheer lives in Riverdale with his wife, Judy Adler Sheer, and has three children, two of whom live in Israel, and nine grandchildren. In addition to Jewish study, his central passion, he is a serious classical music lover and enjoys photography, fitness, playing the accordion and has a strong interest in the environment and nature.
The lecture will explore Jewish identity issues, it will describe German Jews between the two world wars. During Weimar Germany, Jews, participated and not assimilated into German society. They created new forms of German-Jewish literature, music, fine art, education, and scholarship and some of them, like Rosenzweig, Kafka, and Scholem in some way or another returned to their Judaism.
Professor Michael Brenner, who previously taught at Brandeis University, is professor of Jewish history and culture at the University of Munich. He is the author of After the Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Lives in Postwar Germany and The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany and coauthor of the four-volume German-Jewish History in Modern Times.
We are happy to announce that as a result of one of our benefactors' generous support, we are able to assist to obtain a limited number of grants for Pesti Shul members and friends to attend the Limmud conference in England at the end of 2004.
The Limmud Conference is:
The conference is between December 24 30 and it takes place at the University of Nottingham. If you would like to know more about the conference, please visit their website at: www.limmud.org
If you would like to apply for one of our grants, please send a letter describing your knowledge of the English language, your present and planned future involvement in Pesti Shul activities, state your willingness to represent Pesti Shul, and indicate whether you need full support or partial support for attending the conference (if partial support, please specify.) Please send your letter to: limmud [ at ] pestisul.hu by October 18. The Pesti Shul Board will make its decision within a week and will notify all applicants shortly thereafter.