Adult Education Blog

We will discuss our next book on April 28, 2021 through Zoom at 10:30 a.m. The book is Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. 

One of Sir Walter Scott’s most popular and influential works, “Ivanhoe” is the story of one of the last remaining Saxon noble families. At the beginning of the novel we find its titular character, Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, who has been disinherited by his father for his allegiance to the Norman king, Richard...Read more...

This Sunday, our adult ed time will be devoted to hearing from Bradley Caro Cook and Cameron Vanore about the book Choosing Judaism: 36 Stories. We also hope to incorporate opportunity for Ner Shalom members who are Jews by Choice to share their stories about journeying into and through Judaism.

A bit about our presenters:

Bradley Caro Cook, Ed.D. was born in Atlanta Georgia, where he lived until moving to Israel in 2012....Read more...

The Book of Esther

BimBam's "Go Esther"

HaYehudim Baim's "K'mo Zona"

Esther vs. Vashti

Confronting Megillat Esther's Violent Ending

The Book of Esther is meant to be a Farce

Persian Jews

Source Sheet on Esther and her comparisons with Joseph and Daniel

The Book of Ruth

Summary of the Book of Ruth (but it's only four chapters!)

The Power of Names in the Book of Ruth

Brief analysis of the Book of Ruth

The Ner Shalom Book Club is reading Apeirogon by Colum McCann this month and trying to get back on track with our last Wednesday of the month meetings!

Join us at 10:30 am on January 27th via Zoom to discuss this book.

From Goodreads:

Colum McCann's most ambitious work to date, Apeirogon--named for a shape with a countably infinite number of sides--is a tour de force concerning friendship, love, loss, and...Read more...

This month we will be having a guest teacher for Adult Ed!

Geoffrey Dennis is rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in Flower Mound, TX. He is a popular professor in Rabbinics at the University of North Texas, where he teaches Kabbalah, Biblical Literature, and the History of Messianism. He received his M.HL and was ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He also has degrees in Education and Nursing. Prior to his...Read more...

The Book of Job (Full Text)

What is the Book of Job?

Introduction to Job through the Classical Rabbinic Lens

What is the Point of this Book?

Theodicy and Linguistic Structure of Job

What's the deal with Satan here?

Psalms is a collection of poetry. There's no narrative or decisive author, but we will look at the book of 150 poems as deeply as we can in one hour!

Since there isn't as much room for the sort of literary-historical look we often employ for understanding a whole book of TaNaKh in one hour, instead I suggest everyone bring a Psalm for us to discuss.

The Book of Psalms

What is Psalms?

Join us on November 8th at 1 pm via Zoom for a discussion of Chronicles, and some comparing/contrasting between Chronicles and the tales they are are repeating from the other books of the Tanakh.

I Chronicles

II Chronicles

I Chronicles Summary

II Chronicles Summary

What is Chronicles?

Some Examples of Chronicles repeating or "fixing" stories from other parts of the Tanakh

Divine Justice...Read more...

With the holidays taking away from almost every other programming, Book Club has continued on!

In September we read Deathless: the Complete, Uncensored, Heartbreaking, and Amazing Autobiography of Serach Bat Asher, the Oldest Woman in the World by Andrew Ramer.

Now we are reading The Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz, to be discussed via Zoom at 10:30 on October 28th.

The Ner Shalom Book Club will be meeting via Zoom at 10:30 am on August 26th to discuss The Third Daughter by Talia Carner.

From Goodreads about the book:

The turn of the 20th century finds fourteen-year-old Batya in the Russian countryside, fleeing with her family endless pogroms. Desperate, her father leaps at the opportunity to marry Batya to a worldly, wealthy stranger who can guarantee his daughter an easy...Read more...

After a week off, we are continuing again this Sunday with our study of Reform Jewish values.

This week's topic is "Connecting to the Divine" and we will be discussing where traditional ritual fits into Reform Jewish life. Those who purchased the book, A Life of Meaning, were encouraged to read at least the following chapters:

For...Read more...

We are moving on to a new, but related topic from our look at "Reform Halakha". Using A Life of Meaning by Rabbi Dana Evan Kaplan as our guide, we will spend the next six weeks looking at the following topics through the modern/progressive Reform Jewish lens:

This week, as we begin our conversations...Read more...