ELIJAH SUMMER SCHOOL 2025

Source: summerschool.elijah-interfaith.org:

Join Us this Summer for a Multi-Faith Exploration of VISIONS OF THE AFTERLIFE

Opening session – our hopes for and fears of the afterlife

• Panel: Understanding of the human person and human life (and after) Part 1
• Panel: Understanding of the human person and human life (and after)
  Part 2

More <<<

ELIJAH SUMMER SCHOOL – A UNIQUE INTERRELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE!

Summer Schools were the historical starting point of activities of the Elijah Interfaith Institute. They established Elijah’s reputation for grounding the teaching of religion in a deeper level of experience and engagement with issues of mutual concern, where the classroom functions as a place of authentic inter-religious contact.

The major strength of the Elijah Interreligious Summer School is that academic study takes place not in isolation or in abstraction, but within an interfaith community of faculty and students, where the study of religious traditions is integrated with exposure to their lived spirituality. Using diverse learning techniques, including formal text analysis and the more creative bibliodrama, lectures and small group study, an Elijah Summer School is an intense encounter with oneself and with the other.

Since our beginnings in 1997, Elijah’s activities have expanded and our vision to create a Center of HOPE, a House of Prayer and Education in Jerusalem, has begun to be realised. Until the physical building is established, activities such as this summer school will create communities of HOPE, laying the groundwork for the future. Our many partners in this venture, representing Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities in Jerusalem, are testimony to the HOPE we have for a shared future based on mutual respect and a commitment to learning from and with each other.

The summer school will create a community which will live on beyond the experience of the summer.

The 2025 Summer School /summerschool.elijah-interfaith.org: 30.06.2025/

Are you still trying to make up your mind whether to join us? Just do it! You will be grateful that you did! As announced recently, the 2025 Elijah Interfaith Summer School and Interreligious Dialogue Training Seminar will be held on Monday to Thursday for two weeks, from July 20 th -31st on the theme of “Visions of the Afterlife”.

Due to the security situation in Israel, the summer school will be online and open to anyone who chooses to register. Sessions will take place from 4:00 pm Jerusalem time, 9:00 am on the East coast of the USA. You can join for all or part of the program.

Archbishop Antje Jacklen, who has taught in our program for many years reflects on the program as follows:

"In a time of war and conflict, when religion is instrumentalized and manipulated over and over again to justify human aspirations for power, it is ever more important to provide spaces and times for spiritual teaching, based on serious engagement with religious traditions. Such shared engagement is an act of peace and contributes to human resilience and maturity. The Summer School provides such space and time."

Rabbi Dr Reuven Kimelman is also a veteran teacher in the summer school. He wrote:

"The Summer School of the Elijah Interfaith Institute succeeds in bringing together religious thinkers from around the globe to deliberate on central religious issues. This year's topic, the Afterlife, allows us to delve into the issue to what degree is religion more than an afterlife insurance policy and what counts more this life or the afterlife and whether the afterlife in limited to the individual or whether the afterlife is an expression for the messianic world or the future. The burning question is whether salvation is primarily individual, communal, or world-wide."

The theme was chosen as an extension of the learning about Human Life that took place in our 2024 summer school as well as during our sessions of Praying Together in Jerusalem.

A Glimpse into last year's teaching

Day 3 of the 2024 summer school was devoted to “Human Identity” – or perhaps, more accurately, human identities. Participants shared aspects of their own identities and the challenges to identity they face in today’s world before hearing from our scholars. Prof. Nader Saiedi was born in Tehran, Iran. He holds a master’s degree in economics from Pahlavi University in Shiraz and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin. For over 25 years he was a professor of sociology at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. In 2013, he became the Taslimi Foundation Professor of Bahá’í Studies in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA. He is an author well known for his publication, “Gate of the Heart.”

He offered a Bahai perspective, beginning with a concept shared by many religious traditions and then went on to describe the specific teachings of his faith. He uses a beautiful metaphor to explain the concept of “Divine image” in Bahai terms.

Prof. Nader Saiedi

After hearing a distinctly theistic approach to human identity, we then heard a Buddhist teaching.

Bhikshuni Chân Trì Nghiêm (Sister True Holding) is a Zen Buddhist nun, ordained in 2009 by Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh in Plum Village, France. She received the Dharma Lamp to become a Dharma teacher in 2018. Sr Trì Nghiêm has toured widely with Thích Nhất Hạnh and the Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism, helping lead retreats in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the US. She currently resides in Magnolia Grove Monastery in Mississippi, USA.

She participated in the Elijah interfaith delegation to Ukraine and in the Elijah Board of World Religious Leaders’ meeting in 2024.

As part of her presentation, Sr Tri explained that our notions of “birth” and “death” and a “lifespan” might be erroneous. She challenged the concept of an “inert” being – she asked us to question our ideas of “living” and “non-living.” Just as Professor Saiedi challenged students to reassess how we have previously understood our identities, Sr Tri questioned the very idea of identity.

Using the metaphor of the wave, she explained the Buddhist notion that holding onto our individual identities is the source of suffering.

Bhikshuni Chân Trì Nghiêm

Our teachers provided us with much food for thought and the discussion that followed the presentations was rich. The 2025 summer school will also provide much inspiration from outstanding scholars.

Do join us, to be informed, uplifted and engaged in an interfaith community of spiritual learners and seekers.

Praying Together in Jerusalem

Please join us for 10 minutes of daily prayer at 6:00 pm Jerusalem time, Sunday to Thursday, to help us through this difficult period.

Here is the link.

Praying Together in Jerusalem, on this link, with teachings and extended prayers, will next meet on July 3rd, at 6:00 pm Jerusalem time. We a very grateful that there will be an in-person gathering at St Peter’s of Gallicantu as well as meeting over Zoom and so we have chosen the theme of “Gratitude” for the session.

All welcome.

• Meeting ID: 896 5428 9538
• Passcode: Elijah
• Pacific time: 8 am
• ET time: 11 am
• London time: 4 pm
• Central European time: 5 pm
• Jerusalem time: 6 pm
• India time: 8:30 pm

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