Contemporary Jewish Thought with Sharon Brous’ The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and Broken World

Following on Rabbi Toba Spitzer’s book, Reimagining God, and Rabbi Michael Strassfeld’s book, Judaism Disrupted, we continue our encounter with contemporary Jewish thinkers with Rabbi Sharon Brous’ book, The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and Broken World. Students will need to purchase their own copy of The Amen Effect for this course.

A Conservative-trained, Gen X rabbi, Rabbi Brous founded IKAR in Los Angeles in 2004, a congregation named one of the nation’s 50 most innovative nonprofits.

Bryan Stevenson, acclaimed author of Just Mercy, writes, “Rabbi Brous shares remarkable compassion, insight, and moral vision in these pages that illuminate a way forward at a time when the fog of fear and anger in the world grows ever more dense. This book is welcome, affirming, and urgently needed.”

The book’s first chapter, entitled simply “Show Up,” is introduced with a citation from Reverend Victoria Safford: “The world was made — gorgeous, tender, broken, dangerous — we know not why.” Let’s dive in together.