An Ode to Joy Judaism and Happiness in the Thought of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and Beyond

Erica Brown
is the Vice Provost for Values and Leadership at Yeshiva University and the founding director of its Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership. She previously served as the director of the Mayberg Center for Jewish Education and Leadership and an associate professor of curriculum and pedagogy at The George Washington University. Dr. Brown was a Jerusalem Fellow, an Avi Chai Fellow, the recipient of the 2009 Covenant Award, and is a faculty member of the Wexner Foundation. She has written or co-authored 15 books on the Hebrew Bible, spirituality, and leadership and has been published in the
New York Times
,
The Atlantic, Tablet, First Things
, and
The Jewish Review of Books
and wrote a monthly column for the
New York Jewish Week
. She tweeted on one page of Talmud study a day @DrEricaBrown. Her latest book is
Kohelet and the Search for Meaning
(Maggid).  

Shira Weiss
is the AssistantDirector of the Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership. Dr. Weiss teaches Jewish Thought at Yeshiva University's Bernard Revel Graduate School and has previously taught at Stern College for Women. She has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment of Humanities, The Templeton Foundation, Oxford and Ben Gurion Universities. She is the author of
Joseph Albo on Free Choice
(Oxford, 2017),
Ethical Ambiguity in the Hebrew Bible
(Cambridge, 2018), co-author of
The Protests of Job: An Interfaith Dialogue
(Palgrave, 2022), as well as articles in academic journals and anthologies.