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Special Presentation Series
Talmud for Everyone annually hosts special presentations on the Talmud where we invite honorary guest lecturers to share their insights and knowledge on topics related to the Talmud.
Past Lectures
2023-2024​
Fourth Annual Talmud for Everyone Special Presentation Series:
Pragmatic Hope: How one Talmudic passage can guarantee a better year ahead. November 12, 2023.
Rabbi William Hamilton is an alumnus from the department of Religious Studies at Bradley University and ordained through Jewish Theological Seminary. Currently serving as the Rabbi of Congregation Kehillat Israel in Brookline, MA., Rabbi Hamilton is passionate about Jewish learning and we are very excited to welcome our honorary speaker.
2022-2023​
Third Annual Talmud for Everyone Special Presentation Series:
The Temptation of Temptation: Reading the Talmud with Levinas.” November 13, 2022.
Dr. Vlad Niculescu is an Associate Professor of Philosophy, Bradley University, who specializes in the thought of the Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas
2021-2022
Second Annual Talmud for Everyone Presentation Series
Mental Health and Community in Rabbinic Literature.” October 17, 2021.
​Hannah Roussel is a doctoral candidate in the History Department at the University of Michigan. She has an MA in Talmud and Rabbinic Literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, a BA in Judaic Studies from the University of Michigan, and spent the 2019-2020 academic year researching and studying at Tel Aviv University. She is currently working on a dissertation that uses Mad Studies and Disability Studies to guide her analysis of stories from the Babylonian Talmud that use the phrase “his/her mind became ill.” She is a self-proclaimed “Talmud Nerd,” and enjoys plenty of other geeky activities in her down time, that is, when her two cats are not monopolizing her attention with demands to be treated like royalty (which they admittedly are).
2020-2021
First Annual Talmud for Everyone Presentation Series:
“How Should We Read the Torah? The Talmudic Debate between Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yishmael.” March 7, 2021.
​Dr. Yakir Englander is the National Director of Leadership programs at the Israeli-American Council. He also teaches at the AJR (a rabbinical school) in (New-York). Originally from the Ultra-Orthodox community of Israel, Englander obtained his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in Jewish philosophy and gender studies. He is a Fulbright scholar and was a visiting professor of Religion at Northwestern University, the Shalom Hartman Institute and Harvard Divinity School. In addition he served as a director at Kids4Peace, an interfaith youth movement in Jerusalem and other cities in North America. Yakir lives in an intentional community in Philadelphia, practices karate, meditation and focuses on the relationship between body and mind.
