Rabbi Chaim Potok

Adult Education has been an significant component of Park Avenue Synagogue life for decades. During the 1965 - 1966 program year, the highlight was a year-long lecture series led by the noted scholar and author, Rabbi Chaim Potok. Remembered primarily for his fictional accounts of the conflicts of living an Orthodox Jewish life in a secular society (The Chosen, The Promise and My Name is Asher Lev were his early novels), Potok was a rabbi and scholar ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1954. He received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania in 1965.

During the 1965-1966 program year, Rabbi Potok, who was a faculty member of the Teachers Institute at JTS, delivered seventeen lectures on "The Golden Age of Rabbinic Judaism". Several notable excerpts can be accessed here:

Rabbi Chaim Potok: The Pharisees and The Sadducees – November 11, 1965

Rabbi Chaim Potok: Origins of the Sukkot Festival – December 6, 1965

Rabbi Chaim Potok: What is the Nature of Man? – February 21, 1966

Rabbi Chaim Potok: Jewish Law, Society and the Individual – March 21, 1966

Rabbi Chaim Potok: The Rabbinic War Against Poverty – May 9, 1966

We hope you enjoy this important piece of PAS history. Please email your comments or questions: shapiroarchive@pasyn.org.