Youth Night: March 15, 6:30 – 7:45 pm in Sherman Center

Building a Teen-aged Spiritual Life: Young people sometimes struggle with prayer. Prayer, for adults, often arises from a sense of need and insecurity that comes with age. For a teenager, life seems endless and without boundaries. Prayer seems like a waste of time and energy. In this session, Rabbi Wolicki, will discuss ways to understand prayer to build a teenager’s spiritual life.

2017 Stark Lectureship: March 16, 11:00 am in Sherman

The Stark Lectureship was established to explore the nexus between faith and social action. In this talk, Rabbi Wolicki will examine the story of Abraham and consider its two competing emphases people of faith still experience. God calls us to be agents of shalom/wholeness in a broken world (an outward focus) yet we are equally bound to care for our own families and communities (an internal focus). Rabbi Wolicki will provide wisdom from the Jewish experience as to how balance can be achieved and maintained over time.

Pastor’s Conference: March 16, 1:00 pm in Knox Conference Room

Suffering: Three Biblical Strategies for Survival.  How do we deal with suffering in spiritually redemptive ways? How can the Jewish experience, both within the scriptures and after the biblical era, provide comfort and wisdom? In this session, Rabbi Wolicki will explore three biblical themes depicting three responses to suffering. He will relate these to the holocaust and to the Jewish experience to provide paradigms of redemptive response. Texts for preparation: Lamentations, Job 32-42 and Psalm 116.

Bio:

Rabbi Pesach Wolicki is the Associate Director of the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation. He has spent the last 12 years as Dean of Yeshivat Yesodei HaTorah, a post secondary academy of higher Torah learning. He is a widely respected in the world of Jewish education as an innovator. He is known for his engaging, enthusiastic, and interactive teaching style. Previously, Rabbi Wolicki served as a communal rabbi in Fairfield, CT and Newport News, VA.