Notice Board

The Department of Religious Studies and the Islamic Studies Fund presents:

Hasidism: Piety for the People
Guest Speaker:  Eliezer Segal
Day/Date:  Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Time:  11:00 a.m.
Location:  AH-118 (Anderson Hall, University of Lethbridge)

The movement known as Ḥasidism arose in eastern Europe in the mid-eighteenth century under the inspiration of the charismatic but obscure religious teacher Rabbi Israel Ba‘al Shem Tov. Ḥasidism is usually portrayed as an instance of the Kabbalah, the dominant form of medieval Jewish mysticism. In fact, Ḥasidism’s distinctive approach to spirituality challenges several of the accepted scholarly categories. For one thing, it would appear that the Kabbalah itself (when compared with Ḥasidism) is not really a mysticism in the standard sense of the term. Furthermore, Ḥasidism is far more than just an instance of either mysticism or Kabbalah, since it strives to encompass all aspects of the prior Jewish traditions.

In the present talk we will explore what is arguably the key feature that sets Ḥasidism apart from almost every other movement in Judaism, namely the ways that if derives spiritu-al and mystical meaning from simple experiences that are accessible to common unlearned folks, in such activities as storytelling (in vernacular languages), food, drink, sex, dance and popular songs.

Eliezer Segal (BA McGill 1972; MA and PhD the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1976 / 1982) served on the faculty of the Dept. or Religious Studies (subsequently: Classics and Religion) of the University of Calgary from 1986 to 2017. His main area of research is Rabbinic Literature (Midrash and Talmud); and he has taught courses and published extensively about diverse aspects of Jewish religious life and thought and its interactions with surrounding cultures.

Among his more recent book titles are: Introducing Judaism, Oxford: Routledge, 2008. Reading Jew-ish Religious Texts, Oxford: Routledge, 2011. The Most Precious Possession: The Ring of Polycrates in Ancient Religious Narratives, New York: Peter Lang, 2014. Chronicles and Commentaries, Calgary: Alberta Judaic Library, 2015.