What does Birkat Hamazon (Grace After Meals) Teach Us About Inclusivity and Ethics within the Parameters of Jewish Law? With: Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz

BIO:

Rabbanit Dr. Adena Berkowitz is Scholar in Residence and co-founder of Kol HaNeshamah NYC, an organization dedicated to reenergizing the spiritual lives of both affiliated and not-yet affiliated Jews. With a background in law, Jewish studies, and psychotherapy, Rabbanit Berkowitz is the author of the best selling The Jewish Journey Haggadah, now in its second printing; and co-editor of Shaarei Simcha: Gates of Joy, a mini prayer book, and the first liturgical work written in the modern era by Orthodox women. Touro Law Review featured her article "My Body, My Choice: Biblical, Rabbinic and Contemporary Halakhic Responses to Abortion" in Fall 2021 and her article "Brain Death and Organ Donation in Jewish Law" is featured in the just released The Oxford Handbook on Jewish Law, from Oxford University Press. A founder of the Hadassah National Attorneys Councils, Adena has long been active in interfaith dialogue. Currently a Fellow with the Ohr Torah Stone Jerusalem Interfaith Center, she was part of one of the first Jewish delegations to meet with the late Pope Francis. A popular teacher of Torah across the U.S. and Israel, Rabbanit Adena is a practicing therapist and lives in New York with her husband Rabbi Zev Brenner, children and grandchildren.

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Rabbi Haim Ovadia, born and raised in Jerusalem, was shaped by strong Zionist ideals and a rich Sephardic rabbinic tradition that values Tanakh, Hebrew poetry, and the sciences alongside the study of Talmud and Halakha, and promotes a humane, inclusive approach to Judaism. He was ordained by Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, studied Talmud at Bar-Ilan University, and earned an MA in Hebrew Literature from UCLA. Over more than thirty years, he has served as a community rabbi in diverse communities across Israel, South America, and both coasts of the United States, and has been a faculty member at the Academy for Jewish Religion of California since 2002. Alongside his rabbinic leadership, he has been active in social advocacy, promoting inclusion and practical, empowering halakhic solutions, and has reached thousands worldwide through teaching, podcasts, YouTube, and distance learning. He is currently teaching at Ramaz High School in Manhattan.

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Soraya M. Deen is a Lawyer, Community Organizer and an award-winning international activist and interfaith advocate.She is the founder of Muslim Women Speakers and Nigerian Women Lead- a grass roots organization mobilizing women to fight extremism, antisemitism, and hate. She has her Public Leadership Credentials from Harvard.

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Creating a more just world often calls on us to fight forces of exploitation. How do we engage in these fights in a way that honors our and our opponents' humanity without being overcome by bitterness and rage?

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Rabbi David Jaffe is the Founder and Executive Director of Kirva, an organization dedicated to integrating Avodah (Jewish spiritual practice) with the work of social change. He is the author of Changing the World from the Inside Out: A Jewish Approach to Personal and Social Change, which won the National Jewish Book Award.

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Have you ever wondered why does showing the truth about October 7 — and Jewish suffering worldwide — so often fail to reduce antisemitism?

Join us to be among the first to be exposed to a new research that challenges conventional approaches and proposes a strategic shift: moving our focus from enemies to allies.

Drawing on data analysis and over 100 in-depth interviews with non-Jewish, faith-driven supporters of the Jewish people — from Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and African communities to partners in Japan and the Global South — we will explore how genuine, values-based alliances are already reshaping the landscape.

This is not another briefing on antisemitism — it is a strategic discussion about the allies of the Jewish People, why they matter, and why it is about time we shake their outstretched hand.

About the speaker:

Rabbi Dr. Aharon Ariel Lavi is the Managing Director of the Ohr Torah Interfaith Center, which works with religious leaders worldwide to make religion part of the solution to global challenges. He was also the founder of Hakhel, the Jewish Intentional Communities Incubator in the Diaspora, and MAKOM, the Israeli national umbrella organization of intentional communities (both projects were awarded the Jerusalem Unity Prize by the President of Israel).Lavi holds rabbinic semicha and academic degrees in Economics, Geography, History, and the Philosophy of Ideas. His PhD dissertation explored the migration of ideas between US Jewry and Israeli society. A 2024 Harvard Divinity School postdoctoral fellow, he continued to research Jewishly inspired community building at Bar-Ilan University’s Weisfeld Ma’ayan Institute in 2025. He is a published author on Jewish economic and environmental thought, community building, international religious affairs, and more. He also teaches Jewish economic thought and community building in academia.Outside of his professional life, Lavi is an avid mountain biker, racer, trainer, and trail builder. He lives with his wife, Liat, and their five children in the community they founded together in Shuva, on the Gaza border.

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Source sheet from this class: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sapwewum29rJnmupUAkeHrtua77lp9aQ/view?usp=sharing

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Rabbanit Sharona Margolin Halickman was the first Congregational intern and Madricha Ruchanit at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale (1997-2004) where she provided religious education and spiritual direction for the community. She is a graduate of Yeshiva University (BA and MS) as well as Matan’s Eshkolot (Tanach) and Hilkheta programs. Sharona is the founder and director of Torat Reva Yerushalayim and she writes a weekly blog on the parsha for the Times of Israel. Sharona is the author of two books: Parsha Points: Torah from the Land of Israel and Parsha Points: More Torah from the Land of Israel.

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Ariel Evan Mayse is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University, the rabbi-in-residence at Atiq: Jewish Maker Institute, and senior scholar-in-residence at the Institute of Jewish Spirituality and Society. Previously he served as the Director of Jewish Studies and Visiting Assistant Professor of Modern Jewish Thought at Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts, and a research fellow at the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Michigan. Mayse holds a Ph.D. in Jewish Studies from Harvard University and rabbinic ordination from Beit Midrash Har’el in Israel. He is the author of Laws of the Spirit: Ritual, Mysticism, and the Commandments in Early Hasidism (2024), and Speaking Infinities: God and Language in the Teachings of Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezritsh (2020). His current book project As a Deep River Rises: Judaism, Ecology and Environmental Ethics, is under contract with Brandeis University Press, and he is writing a biography of the Baal Shem Tov for the Jewish Lives series at Yale University Press.

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