November 12, 2025
“Do Jews and Christians love the same way?”
An evening dialogue with Rabbi Shai Held, followed by a Christian response from Dr. Richard Middleton and open audience Q&A. The event will be offered in person with a livestream available.
What To Expect
We are happy to be able to announce that Rabbi Shai Held will be coming to Northeastern Seminary and Roberts Wesleyan University to give an evening talk on Judaism and love on November 12, 2025. Dr. Richard Middleton will be the respondent, giving some Christian reflections on his talk (and book) and raising questions for discussion.
This will be followed by an open conversation with the audience. We plan to have some of Rabbi Held's books (Judaism Is about Love and The Heart of Torah) for sale at the event, with a time for book-signing afterwards.
This event will be in person and also streamed live.
Location: Andrews B. Hale Auditorium 2301 Westside Drive, Rochester, NY 14624
Wednesday November 12, 2025
Doors Open: 6:30 pm
Event Start: 7:00 pm
Questions: For accessibility requests or event questions please contact Maria Gilluly at gilluly_maria@roberts.edu or 585.594.6807
Rabbi Shai Held, one of the most influential Jewish thinkers and leaders in America, is President and Dean of the Hadar Institute in New York City. Rabbi Held received the prestigious Covenant Award for Excellence in Jewish Education, and has been named multiple times to Newsweek’s list of the most influential rabbis in America and to the Forward's list of the most prominent Jews in the world. He is the author of Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence (2013) and The Heart of Torah: Essays on the Weekly Torah Portion (2017). His newest book, Judaism is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life, was published by Farrar, Straus, & Giroux in March 2024.
J. Richard Middleton is Professor Emeritus of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis, and at Northeastern Seminary and Roberts Wesleyan University, in Rochester, NY. A native of Jamaica, he immigrated to Canada for graduate studies and moved to the USA for a teaching position. He is past president of the Canadian-American Theological Association (2011–2014) and the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies (2019–2021). Middleton’s research area is Old Testament theology with a focus on creation, suffering, and the ethics of power. He is the author of five books; the most recent are The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1(Brazos, 2005); A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Baker Academic, 2014);and Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God (Baker Academic, 2021). He is currently working on two new books, one on the power dynamics between prophet and king in 1 Samuel and the other on the biblical worldview for our troubled times.