Date/Time
Date(s) - 05/29/2024
7:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Categories
This week our special guest is Reb Deb Smith. Her topic is “Angels & Demons, Part 4”
Wisdom Class is our Kabbalah study group wherein Rabbi Marc, along with special guest rabbis, bring us the wisdom that lives within the Torah and other Holy texts in weekly 90-minute classes. Participants are guided to understand how to apply these teachings to daily life in the 21st Century, bringing holiness into the mundane.
Most classes are led by Rabbi Marc Labowitz. Often, Rabbi Marc reaches out to other scholars to enhance our learning.
Members receive ZOOM links via email. Non-members, please CLICK HERE to attend.
About Reb Deb Smith
Rabbi Debra Smith (“Reb Deb”) is the founder and spiritual leader of Congregation Or Ha Lev, a virtual Jewish Renewal Community, formerly physically located in New Jersey. She is also a Clinical Social Worker and Multicultural Family Therapist.
Reb Deb received smicha (rabbinic ordination) from ALEPH, the Alliance for Jewish Renewal. She is also an ordained Maggidah (Jewish Storyteller). The focus of Reb Deb’s rabbinic work is Deep Ecumenism and multi-faith dialogue. As a multi-faith activist, she currently serves as co-chair of the NJ Muslim-Jewish Solidarity Committee and is co-chair of the Morris County 1 NJ chapter of the Sisterhood of Salaam-Shalom.
Reb Deb co-facilitates Jewish-Christian dialogue sessions and Jewish-Muslim dialogues with local pastors and imams. She has developed and is teaching, with a Muslim colleague, an online course in Muslim-Jewish Leadership, for ALEPH: The Alliance for Jewish Renewal. In addition to serving as Rabbi of Congregation Or Ha Lev, Reb Deb is the Rabbi-in-Residence at the Drew University Methodist Theological Seminary in Madison, NJ. She is on the faculty of the ALEPH Ordination Program where she teaches Pastoral Counseling and Clergy Ethics.
She is the author of Every Tallit Tells a Tale, which teaches about the history and evolution of the tallit (prayer shawl) and shares 75 stories about the tallit from many contributors throughout the country and as far away as Israel. She is also the author and editor of a collection of original multi-faith prayers, poems and blessings from more than 40 contributors, Words from the Heart, released this past summer.
About Rabbi Marc Labowitz
Rabbi Marc Labowitz is a teacher, lecturer and award-winning composer serving as the Rabbi of TAO – Temple Adath Or, in South Florida since 2002. Rabbi Marc Labowitz’s deepest spiritual practice is to foster a world in which Freedom, Acceptance and Love are the essence of all paths. He endeavors to do this by helping to garner a wise, warm, vibrant, caring Jewish community.
Rabbi Marc Labowitz brings his passionate joyful expression of Judaism, his musical talents, his informative, and deeply spiritual orating, and his forward looking vision to his position as Rabbi of TAO – Temple Adath Or, South Florida Center for Jewish Renewal.
Rabbi Marc Labowitz is a founder of:
- All Fed – Feeding The Homeless and Hungry of South Florida,
- TAO’s Homeward Choir– a soulful outlet for the Homeless contingent in Fort Lauderdale
- Board member of Street Waves a program teaching our inner city youth to swim and surf.
- He is the cofounder of TAO LGBTQ Spirituality Group, the TAO Children’s Jewish Spirituality School, and TAO Spiritual Bereavement.
- The TAO Orchestra and plays alongside family, dear friends and musicians: Rebbetzen Paulina, Galia, Ocean and Kole Kerev Labowitz, Maria Daszkal, Bob Heaton, Esther Levy, Jorge Guzman, Stephanie Mair, Doug Tessler, Zeva Soroker, Carl Schmidt, and Jose Gregorio Hernandez.
Rabbi Marc Labowitz has served as rabbi, keynote lecturer, teacher, officiant and musical performer locally and internationally. He was born into a lineage of rabbis that include his Great-grandfather and namesake, Rabbi Mordechai Rabinovitch of Baltimore Z’l, his grandfather, Rabbi Herschel Leibowitz Z’l, his parents, Rabbi Shoni Labowitz Z’l and Rabbi Phillip Labowitz. Rabbi Marc Labowitz is married to the love of his life Paulina Labowitz, and is the father to their children Galia Nechama, Ocean Ayden, and Kole Kerev Labowitz.
