“Organic Torah” is Topic of Spalding’s Keenan Lecture

Rabbi Natan Margalit, Ph.D., will deliver Spalding University’s 34th Annual Keenan Lecture on Thursday, April 23, 2015, at 7 p.m. in the Spalding University Egan Leadership Center Lectorium, at the corner Fourth and Breckinridge Streets. Rabbi Margalit will speak on the topic of “Organic Torah: Spirit, Systems and Sustainability.”

In his presentation, Rabbi Margalit’s will discuss the premise put forth by many leading environmentalists that in order to overcome the present environmental crisis, and stop the rapid degradation of our life-sustaining natural systems, we need more than scientific and technical fixes. We need a deeper shift in the way we think and feel about our place in this world.

This is where religions can make an important contribution, but for much of the modern era religion and science have been at odds.

Modern science has tried to understand the world by taking it apart. Not discounting all the great benefits that it has brought the world, this reductionist approach has done much to de-legitimize religion and also to distance us from a sense of kinship with the natural world.

Recently, we have seen the beginnings of a shift in science and in culture toward a more ecological, complex systems approach which understands the world in terms of relationships and patterns. This shift opens up an exciting opportunity for dialogue between science and religion such as hasn’t been seen in centuries.

Rabbi Margalit will talk about major themes in Jewish thought and practice that demonstrate an organic, holistic organization that has much in common with systems thinking.

When religious leaders and scientists are speaking the same language of systems, spirit and science can work together toward sustainability.

The 2015 Keenan Lecture is sponsored by the Spalding University School of Liberal Studies and the Bob and Felice Sachs Charitable Fund.

Parking is available in Spalding lots off of Third, Fourth and Breckinridge Streets. For more information, contact Dorina Miller Parmenter at dparmenter@spalding.edu or 502-873-4438.

 

Leave a Reply