May 24, 2013

On Thursday, May 23, 2013, the Jay Phillips Center Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning hosted a “Listening Session” for interfaith leaders in the Twin Cites area. The session was part of the “Global Listening Campaign” being conducted by the Council for the Parliament of the World’s Religions. The purpose of the gathering was to gather data about the happenings, concerns, and needs of faith communities and those involved in interfaith work in the Twin Cities. This data will be used to inform the next Parliament of the World’s Religions, tentatively scheduled for early 2015.

April 5, 2013 Events, Faith, For Faculty/Staff, For Students, Notices

“Embracing the Beloved”

A concert that features new and traditional music from the Indian, Persian and Sephardic-Jewish traditions will be performed this spring in Maple Grove, Minneapolis and Rochester.

Commissioned by the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning, “Embracing the Beloved” was created by Minnesota musicians Nirmala Rajasekar, Maryam Yusefzadeh and David Jordan Harris to explore the shared human values and spiritual aspirations of their three musical traditions.

Each of the musicians will perform with an ensemble specializing in the music of her or his tradition. Voices of Sepharad will perform the Sephardic (Judeo-Spanish) works. Robayat will perform the Persian works. A group that includes some of Minnesota’s most-accomplished performers of music of the Middle East and India will perform the Carnatic (south Indian) works.

In addition to Rajasekar, Yusefzadeh and Harris, the concert will feature percussionists Mick LaBriola, Sriram Natarajan, Balaji Chandran and Tim O’Keefe; violinist David Stenshoel; oud player David Burk; and a choir of Indian vocalists.

A highlight will be the participation of all the musicians in new arrangements and compositions that were created for the concert.

“Embracing the Beloved” will be performed at:

• 6 p.m. Saturday, April 20, at Minnesota Hindu Temple, 10530 Troy Lane North, Maple Grove. Admission is $25 and includes a post-show vegetarian dinner. Tickets are available by calling the temple, (763) 425-9449.
• 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 1, at Sabes Jewish Community Center, 4330 Cedar Lake Road S., Minneapolis. Admission is $15 and tickets are available by calling the center, (952) 381-3499.
• 12:10 p.m. Monday, May 13, as part of the Harmony for Mayo concert series in the Barbara Woodward Lips Atrium of the Charlton building at the Mayo Clinic, 200 First St. Southwest, Rochester. This concert is free and open to the public.

“Embracing the Beloved” is structured around the sun’s passage from dawn to nightfall. Starting from the anticipation of dawn and new beginnings, it moves into the heat of the day with afternoon study and storytelling, then to music of the night and the heart, and finally to gratitude. Audiences will hear nearly a dozen languages, including Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Frasi, Kurdish, Azari, Hebrew and Judeo- Spanish.

Harris is co-founder and artistic director of Voices of Sepharad and is executive director of Rimon: The Minnesota Jewish Arts Council. A composer and playwright, he has studied and performed Sephardic music throughout the world.

Rajasekar teaches the art of Carnatic music and is artistic director at the Naadha Rasa Center of Music in Plymouth. She has performed around the world and with musicians from western classical, Chinese, Indonesian gamelan and jazz traditions.

Yusefzadeh is a co-founder and performer with the world music quartet Robayat. She is involved with Persian, classical, jazz and world music as a vocalist, arranger, composer, percussionist and educator.

While each of their musical traditions has emerged from different historical circumstances and speaks in its own musical vocabulary, the artists aim to open a door for audiences into their cultures through the language of music.

Yusefzadeh’s repertoire mirrors the complex history of Persia, embracing pre-Islamic Zoroastrian chant, folk and ethnic tribal music, and the classical music of Iran. Rajasekar brings into the collaboration her research into the ancient roots of Indian music – melodies as old as 2,000 years – which create a historical backdrop for the growth of Indian music into the 21st century. Harris brings a tapestry of Sephardic music that stretches over the many lands where Jews resettled after their expulsion from Spain in 1492 – Morocco, Bosnia, Turkey and even into India.

The concert is co-sponsored by the Hindu Temple of Minnesota, Sabes Jewish Community Center and the Harmony for Mayo Program. The Jay Phillips Center is a joint enterprise of the University of St. Thomas and St. John’s University, Collegeville.

Information about the concert is available on the Jay Phillips website and from David Jordan Harris, (651) 227-2583.

Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning | January 30, 2013 | Academic News, College of Arts and Sciences, Events, Faith, Justice and Peace Studies

Rabbi Amy Eilberg will present the lecture “From Enemy to Friend: Jewish Reflections on Everyday Peacemaking” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 12, in the Anderson Student Center’s Woulfe Alumni Hall North (Room 378A) on the St. Paul campus of the University of St. Thomas.

The lecture is sponsored by the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning in collaboration with St. Thomas’ Justice and Peace Studies Department. It is free and open to the public.

Drawing on Judaism’s rich body of sacred texts about peace and peacemaking, Eilberg will explore why conflict arises among individuals and groups, what contributes to the resolution of conflict, and how each of us can serve the cause of peace.

Eilberg will be rabbi-in-residence with the Jay Phillips Center, a joint enterprise of the University of St. Thomas and St. John’s University, Collegeville, from Feb. 4 through Feb. 15.

In 1985 Eilberg became the first women ordained as a rabbi in Judaism’s Conservative Movement. A co-founder of the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center, where she directed the Jewish Hospice Care Program, and a founding co-director of the Yedidya Center for Jewish Spiritual Direction, she is nationally known as a leader of the Jewish healing movement and in the field of Jewish spiritual direction.

From 2007 to 2011 Eilberg served as coordinator of the Jay Phillips Center’s Interfaith Conversations Project, fostering interfaith learning and friendship among Christians, Jews and Muslims in the Twin Cities area. Currently she is the center’s interfaith conversations special consultant. She also works with the Jewish Council on Public Affairs on its Civility Campaign and serves on the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations.

Eilberg is also deeply engaged in the work of peace and reconciliation, particularly in connection with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, lecturing and writing on this topic as well as on the art of compassionate listening, healing and spiritual direction. She is at work on a book titled From Enemy to Friend: The Sacred Practice of Jewish Peacemaking.

Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning October 31, 2012 Events, Faith

Rabbi David Wirtschafter, rabbi of the Ames Jewish Congregation in Iowa, will discuss “The Radical Notion of Rest: Reflections on the Meaning of the Sabbath” at noon Thursday, Nov. 8, in the Anderson Student Center’s Woulfe Alumni Hall North on the St. Paul campus of the University of St. Thomas.

The lecture is sponsored by the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning and is free and open to the public. A free buffet lunch will be provided.

“In biblical times, the idea of the Sabbath as a day of rest for all people was a revolutionary idea that challenged social orders based on the assumption that some people owned other people’s time,” said the Jay Phillips Center’s director, John Merkle, “And the Sabbath has sustained the Jewish people and their religion throughout the centuries.”

According to Wirtschafter, “the Sabbath has been one of the Jewish people’s most important social and intellectual contributions to civilizations throughout the world.” In his lecture at St. Thomas he will explore the meaning of the Sabbath and “how the digital age raises new challenges for the distinction between the work place and home, labor and rest.”

Wirtschafter was raised in Minneapolis and graduated from Brandeis University with a B.A. degree in English literature and from Hebrew Union College in New York with an M.A. in Hebrew literature.

During the current academic year, Wirtschafter is rabbi-in-residence with the Jay Phillips Center, a joint enterprise of St. Thomas and St. John’s University, Collegeville, serving as guest professor in classes at both universities. He also hosts Sabbath meals for students and leads trips for them to synagogues in the Twin Cities area.

Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning October 31, 2012 Academic News, Events, Faith, School of Law

University of St. Thomas law professor Susan Stabile will present the lecture “Adapting Buddhist Meditation Practices to Christian Spirituality” at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 13, in the Anderson Student Center’s Woulfe Alumni Hall North on the St. Paul campus of the University of St. Thomas.

The lecture is sponsored by the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning and is free and open to the public.

Drawing from her book, Growing in Love and Wisdom: Tibetan Buddhist Sources for Christian Meditation, published this month by Oxford University Press, Stabile will explore common values that underlie Christianity and Buddhism and how interreligious engagement can offer mutual enrichment for people of both traditions, giving special attention to how Buddhist meditation practices can enrich Christian spirituality.

After the program, Stabile’s new book will be available for purchase and signing.

Stabile holds the Robert and Marion Short Distinguished Chair in Law at St. Thomas’ School of Law, where she also serves as a fellow of the Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership and offers retreats and other programs of spiritual formation for students, faculty, staff and alumni.

Raised as a Catholic, Stabile devoted 20 years of her life to practicing Buddhism and was ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist nun before returning to Catholicism in 2001. She is a spiritual director, trained in the Ignatian tradition, and one of the leading scholars in the United States on the intersection of Catholic social thought and the law.

The Jay Phillips Center is a joint enterprise of St. Thomas and St. John’s University, Collegeville.