91快活林

The John Leopold and Martha Dellheim Senior Recital (December 2025)

Graduating Cantorial School senior Marc Szechter headlined an exciting evening of music and spirit. The recital featured a wide range of Jewish music, along with choral works and both existing and newly premiered compositions by Marc and Cantor Gerald Cohen. Marc was accompanied by pianist Joyce Rosenzweig, 91快活林 adjunct instructor, and the combined choir of the H. L. Miller Cantorial School andDebbie Friedman School of Sacred Music.

Micah Cowan – Senior Sermon (’26)

By 91快活林 Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Vayishlah

Vayishlah

Seasons of Responsibility: Interreligious Conversations on Environmental Justice and Repair

Winter-Spring 2026 Learning Series Across Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Hindu traditions, the early spring season is a shared period of reflection, renewal, and ethical clarity. While rooted in different stories and practices鈥攆rom Tu BiShvat to Lent and Easter, from Ramadan to Holi and Passover鈥攖hese holidays collectively invite communities to consider how human choices shape the […]

Jewish Worlds Illuminated: A Treasury of Hebrew Manuscripts from The 91快活林 Library

By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary

Jewish Worlds Illuminated: A Treasury of Hebrew Manuscripts from The 91快活林 Library September 17鈥揇ecember 27, 2025Grolier Club 47 E 60th St. New York, NY 10022 Jewish Worlds Illuminated features over 100 manuscripts and books offering a world tour of Jewish literary creativity across many centuries and thousands of miles. The exhibition explores the diversity of cultures […]

Truth or Fiction?

By MFA in Creative Writing | Public Event video | Video Lecture

The 91快活林 MFA in Creative Writing is built around conversation about hard truths and strange fictions鈥攁bout writing, teaching, failure, ambition, and why anyone keeps doing this in the first place. This three-part online series invites you into those conversations, with faculty and students speaking honestly about craft, community, and what it really means to commit to the work.

Between the Lines:Children of the Book

By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture

InChildren of the Book: A Memoir of Reading Together(St. Martin鈥檚Press / On Sale: August 26, 2025),Ilana Kurshan reveals how literature weaves an invisible thread through the tapestry of family life. Kurshan, a mother of five living in Jerusalem, struggles to balance her passion for books with her responsibilities as a parent. Gradually she learns how to relate to reading not as a solitary pursuit and an escape from the messiness of life, but rather as a way of forging connection and teaching independence. Introducing her children to sacred and secular literature鈥攊ncluding the beloved classics of her childhood鈥攕he becomes both a better mother and a more compassionate reader.

Indigenous Leadership and Ecological Responsibility

Download Sources Drawing on the Center for Earth Ethics鈥橣reedom to Be: Dialogues on Freedom of Religion or Belief for Indigenous Peoples, this session built a foundation for understanding Indigenous identity, spirituality, and relationships to land.Roberto M煤karo BorreroandRabbi Stephanie Ruskayexplored where religious communities have shown up鈥攁nd where they have not鈥攁nd invite participants to consider how faith […]

Law, Agency, and Ecological Responsibility: A Catholic鈥揓ewish Conversation Drawing on the Book of Esther

What does it mean to act responsibly when power is uneven, harm is systemic, and silence can feel safer than action? Drawing on the Book of Esther, this Catholic鈥揓ewish conversation reflects on moral agency, ecological responsibility, and the challenges of ethical decision-making within contemporary legal and institutional systems.

Between Fast and Feast: Hindu and Jewish Perspectives on Restraint and Responsibility鈥�

What does it mean to act responsibly when there is no guarantee of results? Jewish and Hindu traditions both turn to fasting as a practice of restraint and agency. Focusing on the Fast of Esther, alongside Hindu fasting traditions, this session explores how intentional self-restraint鈥攈eld in tension with celebration鈥攃an shape ethical responses to the climate crisis.

America at 250: Jewish Ideas and the American Experiment

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, this series explores the rich and surprising intersections between Jewish thought and American life. From baseball and youth culture to constitutional law, storytelling, and democratic theory, leading scholars reveal how Jewish ideas, texts, and experiences have shaped鈥攁nd been shaped by鈥攖he American experiment. Sources for sessions can be […]

Relationships and Commitments: Land Beyond Ownership

There are ways to exist in harmony with all of creation that cultivate the soul and a relationship with the Divine. Hussein Rashid and Rabbi Gordon Tucker bring Muslim and Jewish texts into dialogue to explore how religious traditions resist transactional relationships with the earth and with one another. Drawing on the sabbatical vision from Leviticus and a Muslim sources on overtaxation, they reflect on restraint, renewal, and the dangers of extraction. Timed with converging sacred moments鈥攖he beginning of the Jewish calendar, Persian New Year, and the close of Ramadan鈥攖his session offers a shared language for ethical living in a fragile world.

Noam Blauer – Senior Sermon (’26)

By 91快活林 Senior Sermon | Short Video | Yitro

91快活林 High Holiday Webinars 2026

Join 91快活林 this August for a special webinar series to help prepare for the Days of Awe. Through conversations with 91快活林 scholars, we will explore themes that shape the High Holiday season, including fear and resilience, prayer and liturgy, and the enduring wisdom of Jewish texts and traditions. These sessions will offer fresh perspectives, thoughtful reflection, and practical insights to help deepen your experience of the High Holidays.

Motivations for Storytelling

By Paula Mack Drill | Devarim

When our family gathers for celebrations, one refrain consistently punctuates every conversation: 鈥淭hat鈥檚 not the way it happened!鈥� One of my adult children will then retell the story of how my youngest鈥檚 wrist was broken or the first time one of the daughters-in-law came for Shabbat dinner. Everyone has a different motivation for shaping our iconic family stories according to their own remembrance 鈥� to make themselves the heroes (or at least less culpable) or to uplift a favorite way of recalling the incident.

Stranger still is the way I find myself telling old stories in a great variety of ways depending on my emotions or my audience in the moment. I might be the victim or the hero; sometimes in the telling, 鈥淚 was shocked鈥� or 鈥淚 knew all along鈥�! Memory is a tricky thing.

So it seems to be with Moshe here in Devarim, as he recalls what happened when the tribal leaders were sent to reconnoiter the land; an event we first learned about back in Parashat Shelah Lekha in the Book of Bemidbar. It is fair to assume that the all-knowing narrator in Bemidbar was sharing an account of what happened close in time to the event, and Moshe is now remembering it in Devarim at a later time, as an iconic story of his own.If we try to imagine Moshe鈥檚 motivation (conscious or unconscious) for telling the story in the way that he does, we can begin to understand why he says (and doesn’t say) the things he does.