Rabbi Professor Michael Marmur Scholar-in-Residence
Shabbat Ki Tavo, September 12-13, 2025
Drawing from his most recent book, “Living the Letters: An Alphabet of Emerging Jewish Thought,” Rabbi Michael Marmur will teach on four occasions throughout the last Shabbat of the year and in anticipation of the New Year.
Kabbalat Shabbat
Friday, September 12, 6:00 pm
Drash: “Anxiety & Hope”
Shabbat Morning Torah Study
Saturday, September 13, 9:00 am
Text Study: “An Alphabet of Confession and Creation”
Shabbat Morning Sermon
Saturday, September 13, 10:30 am
Sermon: “Chai V’Kayam: On God and God Language”
Selichot Study
Saturday, September 13, 8:00 pm
The Rabbi Mark Dov Shapiro Memorial Lecture: “Neder: On Jewish Commitments”
This lecture will be livestreamed to include a number of Reform congregations across Canada as part of the Hoover Academy of Jewish Study.
Immediately following Rabbi Michael Marmur’s teaching and Havdalah, all are welcome for a dessert reception.
Selichot Service
Saturday, September 13, 9:45 pm
This stirring service, filled with exquisite music, calls us to prepare ourselves for the New Year. We will ceremonially change the Torah mantels to white, reflect on the trying year it has been, and ready ourselves, with renewed spiritual courage, to welcome the year 5786.
For those joining us online in sacred worship, both the study and service will be streamed on our livestream page here: holyblossom.org/holy-blossom-temple-livestream/
Note, there will be a half-hour break for dessert between the two
Michael Marmur is Associate Professor of Jewish Theology at Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem. Until July 2018, he served as the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost at Hebrew Union College, having previously been Dean of the Jerusalem campus. After some 20 years in administrative capacities, he now concentrates his energies on teaching and writing. Born and raised in England and educated at the University of Oxford, Michael made aliyah to Israel in 1984. While studying for an M.A. in Ancient Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he completed his studies in the Israel Rabbinic Program of Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, and was ordained in 1992. For six years following his ordination, he worked as rabbi and teacher at the Leo Baeck Education Center in Haifa. Michael Marmur served for three years as Chair of the Board of Rabbis for Human Rights. Known as a masterful teacher, like his father before him, Professor Marmur has lectured and taught courses in several countries around the world. He is the author of many books, including his most recent, “Living the Letters: An Alphabet of Emerging Jewish Thought.”
“Living the Letters: An Alphabet of Emerging Jewish Thought”
In this work, Michael Marmur employs the structure of the Hebrew alphabet to set out elements of an emerging Jewish theology, presenting a case for the urgent relevance of Jewish life at a time of deepening rupture and accelerating change. He presents core components of a theory and practice of contemporary Judaism. The Hebrew alphabet has long beguiled and preoccupied Biblical authors and liturgical poets, rationalists and mystics, conservatives and radicals. It has served as a locus of theological speculation, an engine of creativity and a recurrent motif throughout the cycle of life, from childhood instruction to graveside recitation. For each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Marmur proposes a concept, gleaned from theology, philosophy, ritual, politics, community and other fields. Readers are invited to combine and deploy them in imagining a Judaism of tomorrow.
Interview about the book here:
https://huc.edu/news/people-of-the-book-faculty-michael-marmur-uses-the-alphabet-to-ponder-questions-of-contemporary-jewish-life/
Available for purchase here:
https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/living-the-letters-an-alphabet-of-emerging-jewish-thought/9783031810404.html
