IN COMMEMORATION OF YOM HASHOAH (HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY, APRIL 8)

R. Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira, the Piaseczner Rebbe, was an educational innovator, spiritual master, and communal leader who taught a profound mode of spiritual resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto during the holocaust.

Buried underground before the Germans liquidated the ghetto, his sermons during the holocaust were discovered following the war by Polish construction workers rebuilding that section of Warsaw and sent to his brother, a Hasidic Zionist, who had made Aliyah to Israel before the war. These sermons were collected together as the book Esh Kodesh (Sacred Fire) and are one of the few deep spiritual teachings we have from a leading Jewish thinker written during the holocaust itself. Together, we will explore teachings of his from the ghetto and the powerful message he provided to his community.

About Our Speaker
Rabbi James Jacobson-Maisels Ph.D. is the founder and executive director of Or HaLev: Center for Jewish Spirituality and Meditation (http://orhalev.org/). He has been studying and teaching meditation and Jewish spirituality for almost twenty five years. He received his Ph.D. in Jewish Studies from the University of Chicago and rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Daniel Landes, the Rosh Yeshivah of Pardes. He was the founding Rosh Yeshiva of Romemu Yeshiva and has taught and innovated programs in Jewish thought, mysticism, spiritual practices and meditation at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, Haifa University, Yeshivat Hadar and in a variety of settings around the world. He strives to integrate his study and practice and to help teach and live Judaism as a spiritual discipline.