Stepping into the classroom at Stanford, part of my job is making the more-than-occasionally recondite ideas of Jewish mysticism accessible to a diverse range of students that are interested in the life of the mind. In striving to teach these Jewish sources as a humanist, I step beyond the boundaries of Jewish thought in order to show students that Jewish mystical texts speak to deeper, enduring questions of existential meaning. Since Stanford is a major research university without an affiliated divinity school, this puts an important role in the hands of the faculty: to create a space for the moral, ethical and spiritual reflection that is a critical component of the a quest for self-formation at the heart of liberal education.
We are happy to welcome Prof. Ariel Mayse to Stanford
Robert & Florence McDonnell Professor of E. European Studies, Fisher Family Director of SGS and Professor, by courtesy, of German Studies and Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Hoover Institution