Loving the Stranger II : Journeying In, Journeying out…

This class will continue to explore the themes of exile, journey, and home that we began last year but with a greater emphasis on both our internal spiritual journeys and our external political ones. People do not need to have participated in last year’s class to join us this year!

We will explore the ways that living in exile has informed the Jewish spirit and Jewish culture, and how the diaspora has scarred and strengthened us. We will examine the complex relationship between displacement, trauma, and resilience, and the spirit of curiosity and adaptivity that generations of wandering have inculcated in the Jewish people. We’ll also examine the ways that creating a home in the United States has led to both healing and a loss of identity. We’ll discuss what the idea of “home” means to us, and the complex way that our tradition often finds home in exile, and exile in home.

While discussing these themes for ourselves as Jews and for the Jewish people, we’ll also be taking a look at our inner landscapes — the way in which we find ourselves strangers from ourselves, and what parts of us exist in exile. What do the Hasidic masters say about guiding our lost souls home, and what do they teach about how even the Divine is on this journey as well?

As we look inward, we will also look outward. What does our tradition have to say about our duty and our obligation to care for the “strangers” in our midst? What does this mean in terms of modern immigration policy and balancing the needs of border communities with the needs of those seeking asylum or simply a better life? How did the history of immigration policy in America shape our own family histories? What are Jewish organizations like HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), which has been around since 1881, and T’ruah, established in 2013, doing to bring a Jewish voice to the politics around immigration, and how are questions about immigration affecting our own elections and those around the world?