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In-Person & Online Event
Tuesday, November 12 |
6:30 PM
Free
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"[Faith] is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade
the need to think and evaluate evidence.”
- Richard Dawkins
“Science takes things apart
to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean.”
- Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
The conflict between science and religion is as old as science itself with
many religious leaders denouncing advances and theories from Darwinism to the
use of embryonic stem cells and scientists expressing similar contempt. Does
Judaism have a unique religious perspective when it comes to balancing
questions of trust, faith, evidence and knowledge? Do today’s Jewish
scientists believe traditional Jewish wisdom brings value to the tables at
which they work?
In partnership with Sinai and Synapses, The Temple Emanu-El Streicker
Cultural Center is honored to welcome two prominent American Jewish
scientists and one of the country’s leading rabbis to discuss a variety of
ways in which contemporary scientists think about the interplay between
science and meaning, the relationship between religion and science in our
society, where there are similarities between how Jews and scientists deal
with and communicate uncertainty and how to (re)build trust both in science
and in Judaism.
Panelists include:
The former Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Dr. Rochelle Walensky
has also been Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chief of the
Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and Chair
of the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council at the National Institutes of
Health.
Professor of Physics and of Mathematics at Columbia University, Dr. Brian Greene is a
leading theoretical physicist who has been described by The Washington Post as
“the single best explainer of abstruse concepts in the world today.” He is
the author of four acclaimed books turned into the Emmy and Peabody
Award–winning NOVA miniseries, The
Fabric of the Cosmos, which he hosted.
The Max Webb Emeritus Rabbi of Sinai Temple and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard
Divinity School, Rabbi
David Wolpe has been named the most influential rabbi in
America by Newsweek
and one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world by The Jerusalem Post. Author
of eight books, he is the Senior Advisor at Maimonides Fund.
Moderator: Author, producer and frequent moderator, Abigail Pogrebin sits
on the boards of both Shalom Hartman and AJC’s Muslim-Jewish Advisory
Council. Her My Jewish Year:
18 Holidays, One Wondering Jew was a finalist for the National
Jewish Book Award and her new book, It
Takes Two to Torah, will be published in September 2024.
Opening and closing remarks:
Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman
is the Founding Director of the organization Sinai and Synapses, which
bridges the scientific and religious worlds. A writer, scholar and speaker on
the interaction of religion and science, he has been an adjunct professor at
both the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and the Academy
for Jewish Religion.
President of The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership (Clal), Rabbi Brad Hirschfield was
listed in Newsweek
as one of America’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis. He is the author and editor
of numerous books, writes a column for Religion
News Service and regularly teaches and consults for the US Army
and US Department of Defense and multiple religious organizations.
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