The Afterlife in Classical Judaism with Pinchas Giller (In Person & Online)

The Afterlife in Classical Judaism: From Resurrection to Reincarnation, with Pinchas Giller

In the PRS Library!

Various understandings of the afterlife were asserted from late antiquity to early modernity. These are often contradictory and sit uneasily with one another. Many seem to become agnosticism regarding the afterlife in Judaism, or maintain that there is no fixed afterlife tradition. This series of lectures will present these traditions, with particular attention to the classical Kabbalah. Professor Giller has been a contributor to the recent volume The Life of the Soul: Jewish Perspectives on Reincarnation from the Middle Ages to the Modern Period.

Class 1 (March 19) - Biblical agnosticism, the spirit world of the Talmud and the emergence of the three part soul

Class 2 (March 26) - The three part soul in late antiquity, the speculations of the Zohar and the Emergence of Reincarnation

Class 3 (April 2) - The reincarnation tradition in the Galilean renaissance, gravesite pilgrimage and veneration and Hasidic romanticism, the Chabad understanding of non-death.

Pinchas Giller was brought up in Cocoa Beach, Florida and received his BA at Columbia University. He was ordained at Yeshiva University and received his doctorate at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. Rabbi Giller has written extensively on Judaism and his field of expertise, Jewish Mysticism or Kabbalah. He has written four books, The Enlightened Will Shine: Symbolism and Theurgy in the Later Strata of the Zohar (State University of New York Press, 1993), Reading the Zohar (Oxford University Press 2000), Shalom Shar’abi and the Kabbalists of Beit El (Oxford University Press 2000) and Kabbalah: A Guide for the Perplexed (Continuum Press; 2011). He has also edited Be'er Moshe al ha-Torah, by Moshe ha-Kohen Reicherson. Rabbi Giller is Professor of Jewish Thought and chairman of the Jewish Studies department of the American Jewish University, Los Angeles.

*Please note classes can be taken individually but the material from each class forms the basis for the next so it is recommended to complete the series in order. Each class will be recorded and shared with students for up to 2 weeks following each class.

Ticket price: $15 per class ($40 for all 3)

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