{"id":46470,"date":"2012-09-19T18:10:41","date_gmt":"2012-09-20T02:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=46470"},"modified":"2012-09-19T18:10:41","modified_gmt":"2012-09-20T02:10:41","slug":"the-historian-who-gets-me-excited-about-orthodox-judaism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=46470","title":{"rendered":"The Historian Who Gets Me Excited About Orthodox Judaism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Orthodox Judaism is tough. There are so many required rituals, it can drive you crazy if you’re not born into it. One thing that keeps me going is inspiring Torah study and my favorite teacher for the past decade is historian Marc B. Shapiro.<\/p>\n

I’ve often gotten discouraged with my Judaism. I feel like I’m just doing things by rote. It’s so hard. I feel like my mind is dying. Then I put on a Marc Shapiro lecture and I get excited again about Torah.<\/p>\n

The years 2001-2009 were a wilderness for me Jewishly. I just lost almost all of my enthusiasm for my religion. I kept practicing it because I believed in it but I had lost my joy. One thing that kept me going was reading and listening to Marc Shapiro.<\/p>\n

From Wikipedia<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nMarc B. Shapiro<\/b> (Hebrew: \u05de\u05dc\u05da \u05e9\u05e4\u05d9\u05e8\u05d0, born 1966) holds the Weinberg Chair in Judaic Studies<\/a> at the University of Scranton<\/a> and is the author of various books and articles on Jewish history, philosophy, and theology. His writings often challenge the bounds of the conventional Orthodox understanding of Judaism using academic methodology while adhering to Modern Orthodox<\/a> sensibilities. Shapiro is a popular on-line lecturer for Torah in Motion and often writes for the Seforim Blog.<\/div>\n
\nShapiro received his BA at Brandeis University<\/a> and his PhD at Harvard University<\/a>, where he was the last of the students of the late Prof. Isadore Twersky<\/a>. His father is Edward S. Shapiro who has published books on American Jewish history.<\/div>\n

\n[edit<\/a>]<\/span>Books authored<\/span><\/h2>\n