Introduction to the series; origins of Reform; Scholem's thesis; R. Jacob Emden and Moses Mendelssohn; can immediate burial be waived?

We will look at the first generation of Reform which is a halakhically basedreform which even had the support of certain rabbis. Indeed, some of what these early "reformers" advocated is today standard not just in Modern Orthodoxy but even in haredi Orthodoxy. This is a onegeneration attempt to modernize Jewish life which is hardly known today. It was because of the failure of this early reform that the more extreme reform took off. All the great rabbis of the early 19th century will be part of our story.

This ongoing series will take place on Mondays at 8:30pm Eastern, starting January 31, 2022


Marc B. Shapiro holds the Weinberg Chair in Judaic Studies at the University of Scranton. A graduate of Brandeis (BA) and Harvard (PhD), he is the author of numerous books, articles, and reviews and is a popular scholar in residence at synagogues around the world. He has written Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy and The Limits of Orthodox Theology, both of which were National Jewish Book Award Finalists. Other books of his include Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox, Studies in Maimonides and His Interpreters, and Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History. In 2019 he published Iggerot Malkhei Rabbanan which contains more than thirty years of correspondence with some of the world's most outstanding Torah scholars. He regularly publishes widely read scholarly articles on the Seforim Blog and is currently writing a book on the thought of Rav Kook. Dr. Shapiro leads a number of the Torah in Motion Jewish history trips.

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