Shalom v' Beracoth Chaverim v' Chaverot:
I am truly humbled and honored to announce a marvelous spiritual and education excursion for you.
Dr. Hune Margulies, Ph.D., of the renown Martin Buber Institute, has asked me to lead you through some of the most fascinating places and sites in South America.....Argentina. Ellen and I have spent much time there and have even been to its tip, Ushuaia, the southern most city in the globe.
The Jewish life and history in Argentina, especially in Buenos Aires is amazing. I will be leading the Jewish history part of the tour, along with local speciality guides, but equally important, I will be leading the Jewish Spiritual Renewal part. I am the author of many articles and essays, and books, and we will be using two of them: The Handbook of Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew and A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud for some learning sessions, starting the day at breakfast, and while we are eating during dinner. Don't fret; we won't keep you from seeing a moment of the beauty of Argentina.
The attached should give detail of the logistics of the trip and questions about it should be addressed to Dr. Margulies. If you have any questions relating to our spiritual avodah please email me at RabbiASegal@aol.com and I will do my best to answer you.
The Jewish community in Argentina is a vibrant as the Argentines are. Shabbats there are truly joyous, with true Oneg. South and Central America's only Rabbinic Yeshiva servicing the entire Western Southern Hemisphere is in downtown Buenos Aires.
And Patagonia is so full of wonderment that it will be hard to focus your cameras!! Everything beautiful is deemed an expression of G!d's revelation to us. In Judaism, natural beautify is not ascribed to randomness, nor to our subjective values, but is seen as a gift of G!d's handiwork. Hence we thank G!d for the awe, wonder and joy, by saying with kavenah : Ba-ruch a-tah A-do-shem, El-o-cha-nu Me-lech Ha Olam, shek-ka-khah lo be-o-la-mo. (Who has such things in His world.)
And on a Jewish spiritual note, if this is the moment in your life, that you wish to set aside time to recapture your Judaism, to re-learn or learn anew, to get rid of resentments and defects of character that hold you back in life, to begin to experience a life that is happy, joyous and free, and/or to develop a personal relationship with G!d, this trip is for you as well.
Space is limited to only circa 25 people and these trips historically fill up quickly regardless of current events or economies.
I look forward to welcoming and getting to know each and every one of you in Argentina.
Shalom and Feliz Año Nuevo !
Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
RabbiASegal@aol.com
(About Rabbi Segal...Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal)
While he was still in high school, Art Segal took a train from his home in New Jersey to Philadelphia after school every day to study Judaism at Gratz College. He also attended Camp Ramah in the summers of his youth. So, his involvement with Jewish spirituality and his path to Jewish Spiritual Renewal began very early in his life.
Art received his BA, DMD, and completed specialty training in Oral Medicine, and post-doctoral study in Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania during the 1970s. He graduated cum laude, and went on to be broadly published in his field, and has lectured extensively.
Following his retirement from a successful practice Art continued to pursue his true love: Jewish education. He was ordained a Rabbi after ten years of intensive study, and was the first to bring weekly Torah and Mishna classes to one of the oldest synagogues in America where he held the position of Scholar-in-Residence.
Rabbi Segal continues to study and write each day from his home in South Carolina, and teaches Jewish Spiritual Renewal at the Hebrew College Rabbinic School of Newton Centre, Massachusetts through its Shamash online class service. His Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud is the first to incorporate Talmud, Midrash, and other great Judaic texts with Torah from a Jewish Spiritual Renewal viewpoint. His The Handbook of Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew has helped countless Jews help change their lives for the better.
Rabbi Segal is happily married to his beshert, Ellen Freedman Segal. Together they have traveled to over 165 countries, visiting Jewish communities in most of them. He is active in his local community, serving on a variety of boards, mostly related to Arts and Cultural Diversity. Ellen and Rabbi Segal enjoy a life of shalom, shlema and gratitude, with their parrot, Avivit Keter.
