photo by Davide Sorrenti. Davide and Jaime in Omaha. 1995

SHIUR Berlin: FACE TO FACE

Rosh Hashanah Dinner discourse

What if alienation is not the opposite of relation, but its starting condition?

In the Kabbalistic myth, the first human beings are created joined together—yet back to back. They are inseparable, but unable to see one another. Only through an act of separation can they turn and encounter each other face to face.

It is a strange image. We can be bound to something, another person, a tradition, a community, even an idea and still never truly face it.

Human intimacy offers one model for this condition: proximity does not guarantee encounter. But the myth points further, toward a more general problem of relation itself. How do we recognize the structures that keep us turned away? And what does it mean to begin the difficult work of turning toward what we cannot fully know, possess, or overcome?

On Rosh Hashanah, we return to this drama.

Join us in Berlin for an intimate Rosh Hashanah dinner and discourse exploring the Zohar and Lurianic Kabbalah as a language for thinking about alienation, separation, and the work of creation.

Space limited. Apply via the link in bio.

Space Limited. Apply to join.