Summary of the three presentations:

Shemoneh Esreh
BSKI's Mission statement says that we are all about Torah, T’Fillah and Tikkun Olam.
We are great about Tikkun Olam, our great Social action Committee, and we have lots of opportunities of learning through our great Adult Education Committee under Marvin, so that takes care of Torah.
But what about that guy in the middle, the T’fillah, prayer?

Well, this program is about Prayer. Actually, the Shemoneh Esreh prayer is so central to the Service that it used to be called Ha’T’fillah, the Prayer. Because nobody was ever in doubt what prayer they were talking about. You can see in the Talmud how they just refer to Ha’T’Fillah when they actually mean Shemoneh Esreh.
Here is the agenda of the presentation:
1. S.E. Introduction
2. “Welcome to the World of Prayer"
3. How did it all come about? The History of SE.
4. A discussion of each prayer in the SE would take a minimum of 3 hours and we obviously don’t have that kind of time. So, we have to limit this presentation to one Prayer and for the sake of making things easy, I have chosen Prayer Number 1, Avot.


Who Wrote the Bible?
This is a popular summary of the Documentary Hypothesis and the history of the Bible research.
From the introduction:
The early discovery of problems with the notion that Moses wrote the “Five Books of Moses”.
There were direct errors, like the numbers of things were listed differently in different places, Joseph was sold into slavery to the Midianites or to Ishmaelites; or was it Reuben or Judah who saves Joseph from being killed by the other brothers. In Gen 36, there is a list of Edomite kings that include kings that reigned long after Moses lived. Or Gen. 12 where Abraham either came from Ur or from Haran., these first basic errors were discovered over 1000 years ago.
So, if you think that this model that I am about to describe is some modern concoction; rest assured that this is not the case.
And of course there is the story about Moses being the most humble man, but he wouldn’t say that he is the most humble man in the world. If he would say that he’s the most handsome, smartest or strongest man who ever lived, that would have been one thing. But the most humble man doesn’t describe himself as the most humble man. So, this was another indication that Moses didn’t or at least not alone didn’t write the entirety of the books that bear his name. And of course the description of his death was never easy to attribute to him.
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Then the presentation goes on to describe the era in which, per most researchers, the Bible was actually written. The tensions between Israel and Judah, the exile to Babylonia, the return, Ezra, who most likely is the person who knitted together the different strands into the book we now know as the Bible. A thorough description of the J, E, P and D sources. And implications in the 20th and in the 21st century.


The Philosophy of Rabbi Neil Gillman

A basic introduction to Rabbi Neil Gillman’s thoughts and definitions of terms that he uses in his books. An overview of his most important books, Sacred Fragments” (1990), “The Death of Death” (1997) and “Doing Jewish Theology” (2008) .
A detailed explanation of the key elements in understanding his philosophy, language, (“Speaking of God”), signs, symbols, metaphors, the concept of myth, a detailed explanation on why the dichotomy between “fact” and “myth” is false, understanding the will of God, revelation (“What actually happened at Sinai?”), what midrash has to do with it. How to do your own theology!