The Inaugural Rabbi Barry Cytron Lecture with Arnie Eisen

Please join us for the inaugural Rabbi Barry Cytron Lecture featuring Prof. Arnie Eisen on Wednesday, January 21, at 12:00 p.m. ET, at 617 Kent Hall.

In this talk, Prof. Eisen will discuss the motivations behind writing the personal essay Seeking the Hiding God and the choices that shaped its form. He will give particular attention to the question of God’s role in history—a subject that has preoccupied and divided Jewish thinkers in Israel and the United States for more than half a century, and continues to spark debate today.

Arnold Eisen, one of the world’s foremost authorities on American Judaism, is Professor of Jewish Thought and Chancellor Emeritus at the Jewish Theological Seminary. During his tenure as Chancellor, Eisen oversaw curricular and programmatic innovations designed to give rabbinic, cantorial, and educational leaders the skills needed to cope with the unprecedented societal and spiritual challenges confronting Jews today. A popular and charismatic lecturer, Eisen has conducted frank discussions of faith, commandment, and community with hundreds of audiences at synagogues, universities, summer camps, and other venues throughout North America. Those conversations form the basis of Seeking the Hiding God.

Eisen is the author of a widely-read volume of personal reflection, Taking Hold of Torah: Jewish Commitment and Community in America. His scholarly publications include many dozens of articles on the contemporary Jewish situation as well as The Chosen People in America: A Study in Jewish Religious Ideology; Galut: Modern Jewish Reflection on Homelessness and Homecoming; Rethinking Modern Judaism: Ritual, Commandment, Community; and (with sociologist Steven M. Cohen) The Jew Within: Self, Family and Community in America. Eisen’s op-eds and blog posts have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Huffington Post, Time Magazine, and the Times of Israel, among other publications. His blog series, “On My Mind,” has reached many thousands of readers.

Seeking the Hiding God is his first published work of theology.

*Guests must register by Monday, January 19, to be approved for campus access; unregistered guests will not be permitted on campus. Each guest must register individually using a unique email address.

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