2019 Ziffren Lecture ~ "Love Your Neighbor: Jews, Christians, and the Meaning of a Very Elusive Commandment,"

Love Your Neighbor: Jews, Christians, and the Meaning of a Very Elusive Commandment

Thursday, March 285:00-7:00 pm
Marvin Center, 301

Description: The biblical mandate to “love your neighbor as yourself” is frequently held up in Jewish sources as “the great principle of the Torah.”  Yet its meaning is elusive: just what is the verse asking for?  Does “love” refer to emotion, action, or some combination of the two?  If the Bible has emotion in mind, what kind of emotion are we talking about?  Surely people aren’t called to love their neighbor in the same way they love their spouse or their children, so what kind of love *does* the Bible ask for?  We’ll explore the ways an array of traditional Jewish thinkers and modern biblical scholars has wrestled with these questions.  We’ll also probe the very different ways Jews and Christians have often heard the Bible’s charge, and we’ll ask what we might learn about these two religious traditions and the relationship between them from their contrasting approaches to this all-important verse.
 
Speaker Bio: 
Rabbi Shai Held–theologian, scholar, and educator–is President, Dean, and Chair in Jewish Thought at Hadar.  Previously, he served for six years as Scholar-in-Residence at Kehilat Hadar in New York City, and taught both theology and Jewish law at the Jewish Theological Seminary.  He also served as a campus rabbi at Harvard University.  A 2011 recipient of the prestigious Covenant Award for excellence in Jewish education, Rabbi Held has been named multiple times to Newsweek’s list of the 50 most influential rabbis in America and to the Forward’s list of the 50 most influential Jews in the world.  He holds a doctorate in religion from Harvard; his main academic interests are in modern Jewish and Christian thought, in biblical theology, and in the history of Zionism.  Rabbi Held’s first book, Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence, was published by Indiana University Press in 2013; The Heart of Torah, a collection of essays on the Torah in two volumes, was published by JPS in 2017.  He is currently at work on a book about the centrality of love in Jewish theology, spirituality, and ethics, to be published by Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.

October Small Group Meeting

Freshmen, you all are doing an AMAZING job on four year plans. Congratulations! As we wrap those up, it’s time to move on to the next advising beast: SPRING REGISTRATION! At October Small Group Meetings, we’ll answer burning questions such as:

  • What is spring registration going to be like?
  • How do I get rid of this registration hold on my account?
  • Should I stay with my current Origins/Science faculty member or switch things up?
  • Are college students still allowed to trick-or-treat?
  • [Insert your non-personal, generalizable question about basically anything here]

Please RSVP for a small group meeting here. Small group meetings are first-come, first-served and they’re small (duh), so don’t procrastinate! We’ll be holding meetings on Foggy on:

Monday, 10/16 4pm UHP Club Room
Tuesday, 10/17 4pm UHP Club Room
Wednesday, 10/18 4pm UHP Club Room
Thursday, 10/19 4pm UHP Club Room
Friday, 10/20 10am District House B118
Friday, 10/20 11am District House B118
Friday, 10/20 1pm District House B118
 Friday, 10/20 2pm District House B118
 Friday, 10/20 3pm District House B118

So SIGN UP NOW and we’ll see you soon! If the only meeting you can attend is full, please contact the UHP front office or email uhp@gwu.edu. If you cannot attend any of the meeting times, please schedule a one-on-one appointment with Mary here.

Embassy Trick-or-Treating! [SPA Grassroots Event]

There’s a chill in the air, and you know what that means… Halloween. Can you think of a better way to spend it than trick or treating at the embassies with all your honors friends? We thought not.

On Thursday, October 31st (umm, Halloween), your SPA Laura and Michelle will lead a trip to Embassy Row to get as much multicultural candy as possible. They’ll be meeting outside of Funger Hall at 12:30pm, trick-or-treating for a couple of hours, and then walking back. Come dressed as something other than yourself and bring a vessel for transporting goodies. (Start composing your #onlyatGW tweets and Instagram captions now.)
RSVP to the Facebook event here!

How to Not Write Bad – Special Author Event

bothJoin the author of the delightfully funny and enormously useful How to Not Write Bad: The Most Common Writing Problems and the Best Ways to Avoid Them for a discussion and light reception. Copies of his book will be available for purchase. Hosted by the University Honors Program and the University Writing Program.
Wednesday, October 23rd at 3PM
Ames Hall, B101 (Mt. Vernon Campus)

Seats are limited, register now!

Ben Yagoda is a journalism professor at the University of Delaware. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of ten books, including Memoir: A History, Will Rogers: A Biography, and When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It, and has written for Slate, The New York Times Magazine, and publications that start with every letter of the alphabet except J, K, Q, X, and Z.

Join GW at the Kalb Report Taping [Recommended Event]

GW will launch the 20th season of its highly acclaimed public television and radio series The Kalb Report on Tuesday evening, August 27, at the The National Press Club. The event will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and will feature civil rights legends John Lewis, Andrew Young and Julian Bond, as well as PBS NewsHour anchor Gwen Ifill. Moderator Marvin Kalb covered the event for Walter Cronkite and CBS News. Now, 50 years later, this distinguished group will explore the impact of the day, the role of the press in the Civil Rights Movement, lessons learned, and how they can be applied in the digital age. For more information and free tickets, visit www.kalb.gwu.edu

Semi-formal with OLAS [SPA Event]

noche2013

Join SPA member Yesenia Flores and the Organization of Latino American Students on Saturday, April 13th to celebrate the 17th Annual Noche de Cultura.
During this night, cultures around the world come together and embrace each other’s similarities and differences through the theme “Under the Moon: Todos Juntos.”
This spectacular evening features an array of Latin American cuisine, lively music, and fantastic performances.
Marvin Center 3rd Floor (Grand Ballroom)
9:00PM-1:45AM
Dress code: Semi-formal (Dress to impress!!!!!)
Ticket Price:
$7 for members
$10 for non-members
The event is open to everyone!

UHP, Camp Kesem GW, and GW Club Cross Country [Event]

Check out Camp Kesem GW and GW Club Cross Country’s Caterpillar Crawl!
Join UHPers Kimya Forouzan, Brittany Harvey, Sydnee Fielkow, Shailly Gaur and many many others on March 23rd at 10:30 am to kick off cherry blossom season with a Campus Recreation sponsored 6K on the National Mall. 
Registration will be $15 and all proceeds will go towards Camp Kesem GW, a free one-week summer camp for the children of cancer patients.
Stop by Kogan Plaza after the race for a barbecue with food and music for all racers and their friends!  This 6K also offers points for all Greek organizations and kicks off the Campus Rec Cup – a three part series extending from March to late April.
Come out to support a great cause, see the cherry blossoms, and enjoy some food with your fellow UHPers!

More details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/379315022176189/?fref=ts

Roadtrip TONIGHT 7-9PM! [SPA Event]

Reasons why YOU should attend tonight’s SPA ROADTRIP:

1. There’s nothing like free burritos to bring people together.

burritoboloco

2. Wednesday is a great day for comfort food, especially when it’s free and prepared for you

mashedpotatoes

3. You can meet our SPA, UHP overachievers just like you to help with your #honorsproblems

overachiever

4. Or, you can bond with the SPA that relate to your procrastination style

proc

5. You may get to see this face*

william

Come to the UHP Townhouse tonight from 7-9pm for free food, SPA advising, and the chance to win eternal happiness by breaking the piñata!

*William will not be in attendance – babies and burritos don’t mix. Also, he has plans with the Obamas.