Art Green
Welcome to the official website of Prof. Rabbi Arthur Green, scholar of Jewish mysticism and Neo-Hasidic theologian.
For inquiries and collaborations, feel free to reach out via email at artgreen26@agmail.com
Shalom Aleikhem!שלום עליכם!
I’m very happy to “meet” you in this new electronic world of ours. I am Avraham Yitshak (rendered by my assimilating parents into “Arthur Elliot”) Green. I am pretty universally known as Art. Thank you for stopping by. Let me quickly add that I do not consider this a real meeting. I welcome the thought that your “visit” here might lead to that as well.
What do I have to offer you in this very much updated shtetl market stall? I have been thinking, writing, and teaching about Jewish spiritual life, theology, and mysticism for more than sixty years. Over the course of that long period, my primary goal has been that of articulating an old/new sort of Judaism for seekers. Today I refer to it as Neo-Hasidism. That means a Judaism that captures the freshness, joy, and spiritual excitement that Hasidism had in its very earliest days and translates it into a language that will work for the many seekers in our time, including Jews, non-Jews, and not-yet-Jews alike. You may also call it a “seeker friendly Judaism,” one that follows in the path of our father Abraham, who rejected the conventional religion of his day and set out on his own journey. I believe that all of our spiritual journeys are rooted in his.
I have done this work of mine through teaching and writing. I’ve taught in both university and rabbinical training programs, preferring the latter, where a more personal sort of teaching was possible. I've authored, translated, edited about 30 books and I’m still working. There's a list of them, with a link to their purchase, on this website. I've also written lots of articles, some academic and some personal and more intended for the seeker then the scholar. You can find a link to those here as well, connecting you to my page on Academia.edu. More recently, I’ve been offering teachings on Youtube as well. Check out my channel, also linked here.
In offering you access to my writings and recordings this way, I am asserting that I continue to stand by them as worthy of your time and attention. But do note the dates on various written pieces. My own thinking has evolved over these decades, and I would no longer say things exactly as I did in some of my earlier writings.
You’ll also find links to many lectures I’ve given over the years, now available on Youtube, as well as to my Substack, where you’ll find my oral comments to each weekly Torah portion as well as a ten-session introduction to Neo-Hasidism as I understand it. Past classes of mine are to be found there as well.
So get to work! There’s enough here to keep you busy for quite a while. As you read or listen, please argue with me. I love it. If you want to get in touch with me about something, there’s a way to do that as well.
I’m an old guy now and do not do much traveling. But. I’m readily available for Zoom lectures or conversations.
About Me.
Dr. Arthur Green was the founding dean and is currently rector of the Rabbinical School and Irving Brudnick Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Religion at Hebrew College. He is Professor Emeritus at Brandeis University, where he occupied the distinguished Philip W. Lown Professorship of Jewish Thought. He is both a historian of Jewish religion and a theologian; his work seeks to form a bridge between these two distinct fields of endeavor.
Educated at Brandeis University and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where he received rabbinic ordination, Dr. Green studied with such important teachers as Alexander Altmann, Nahum N. Glatzer, and Abraham Joshua Heschel, of blessed memory. He has taught Jewish mysticism, Hasidism, and theology to several generations of students at the University of Pennsylvania, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (where he served as both Dean and President), Brandeis, and Hebrew College. He has taught and lectured widely throughout the Jewish community of North America as well as in Israel, where he visits frequently. He was the founder of Havurat Shalom in Somerville, Massachusetts in 1968 and remains a leading independent figure in the Jewish Renewal movement.
Dr. Green is author editor, and translator of over twenty volumes. Among his scholarly works are Tormented Master: A Life of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav and Keter: The Crown of God in Early Jewish Mysticism. Dr. Green is also well known for his translations and interpretations of Hasidic teachings, including the two-volume: Speaking Torah: Spiritual Teachings from Around the Maggid’s Table (2013) and The Light of the Eyes (2021). Best known of his theological writings are Radical Judaism: Re-thinking God and Tradition (2010) and Judaism for the World (2020).