Everyone is invited to welcome Shabbat, enjoy a delicious meal, and learn with Justin Sledge.  Kabbalat Shabbat will begin at 6:00pm

and will be followed by dinner at approximately 7:00pm.  Learning with Justin will begin at approximately 8:00pm.

Dinner registration is required by February 20.  See below. 

$25 per adult.  Kids ages 17 and younger are free.

Jewish law is unequivocal.  Jews are never allowed to practice sorcery. Indeed, practicing magic is condemned no less than eight different times in the Torah. Yet, the historical and literary record proves that not only did Jews practice magic but that many of these sorcerers were the rabbis themselves! We will take a brief tour of the turbulent relationship between Judaism and magic. We will start by discussing just what magic means to us in our contemporary context before turning to the rich history of magic in Jewish history. By studying texts and artifacts from several eras of Jewish history we will discover an exquisite and mysterious world of amulets, necromancers, astrologers, exorcisms, the ability to control both angelic and demonic forces, along with spells of various kinds. Despite the alleged ban on magic in Judaism, we will see that such practices thrived at all levels of Jewish society at every point of our history.

Dr. Justin Sledge is an adjunct professor of philosophy and religion in the metro Detroit area and host of the popular YouTube channel Esoterica with over 225,000 subscribers.  His research focuses on the relationship between philosophy and esotericism, especially in metaphysics.  He also collects and deals in antiquarian books in the history of the occult.  His wife Alana is the Rabbi of Congregation T'chiyah in Ferndale.