Kushner to Speak at Festival of Faiths

The 2016 Festival of Faiths, “Sacred Wisdom: Pathways to Nonviolence,” will be held in Louisville May 17-21. Most of the sessions will take place at Actors Theatre Louisville.

The five-day festival of music, poetry, film, art and dialogue. It brings in internationally renowned spiritual leaders, thinkers and practitioners.

One of this year’s featured speakers is Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, who will lead a 45-minute session billed as Kabbalah Practice on Friday, May 20, at 8:30 a.m. and will discuss Sacred Wisdom AHIMSA: Do No Harm from 10 a.m.-noon.

Rabbi Kushner is the Emanu-El Scholar at San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El and visiting professor of Jewish spirituality at the Graduate Theological Union. Prior to this, he was Rabbi-in-Residence at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City where he taught spirituality and mysticism and mentored rabbinic students. He presently continues as an adjunct member of the faculty.

Rabbi Kushner is a regular commentator on NPR’s “All Thing Considered,” and one of the most widely read authors on Jewish spiritual life. He brings his gifts as a storyteller and scholar to his role as a leader of personal and institutional renewal within Judaism.

He has a knack for conveying the beauty and the profundity of Jewish mysticism. He can take ancient sacred words, texts, and rituals and make them eminently accessible to the modern mind. This rabbi is also a master storyteller with a keen sense of humor who uses illustrative material from his own life as a touchstone to everyday spirituality.

Teddy Abrams, the music director of the Louisville Orchestra, is also on the schedule along with many other teachers, scholars and leaders. A full list of speakers and ticket information is available at festivaloffaiths.org.

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