Five scholars offer their takes on the connection between God and loneliness:

• Does loneliness or isolation have a purpose in our tradition?
• Is loneliness the opposite of spirituality or even the absence of spirituality?
• How do we think about returning to religious community after periods of isolation?

Join PHS for a series designed to challenge you intellectually and nourish you emotionally. Every class features a major Rabbi, scholar, or writer on the theme of God and loneliness, a significant short text that you will study in depth, and a conversation with our Brooklyn community.

We're excited to have Rabbi David Kasher teach session #5:

Coming Out of the Pit of Isolation: Lessons from the Story of Joseph

The Book of Genesis ends with a great reunion. After a long and twisted tale of deception, Joseph finally reveals himself to his brothers and soon brings his entire family down to Egypt. But for twenty-two years, Joseph had been alone — physically, culturally, and spiritually alone. How did he cope with his forced isolation? What finally allowed him to emerge from it? And what did it take to reintegrate into a life - and a self - he had almost forgotten? From one of the most psychologically complex characters in the Torah there is much to learn about the journey out of isolation that - God willing - awaits us all.

David Kasher serves as an Associate Rabbi at IKAR, a non-denominational spiritual community in Los Angeles. He received his BA in Political Science at Wesleyan University, holds a J.S.D. from Berkeley Law, and received his Rabbinic Ordination at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah.
Rabbi Kasher grew up bouncing back and forth between the Berkeley and Brooklyn, hippies and hassidim – and has been trying to synthesize these two worlds ever since. He has served on the faculty of Berkeley Law, the Wexner Heritage Program, Reboot, and BINA: The Secular Yeshiva, and also taught at Pardes, SVARA, The Hartman Institute, Dorot and various Limmuds. Rabbi Kasher is a teacher of nearly all forms of classical Jewish literature, but his greatest passion is Torah commentary, and he spent five years producing the weekly ParshaNut blog and podcast, exploring the riches of the genre (www.parshanut.com). A ParshaNut book is coming out in 2021.