Description
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Miller Center for Interreligious Learning at Hebrew College has recently launched “PsalmSeason: An Online Encounter with the Wisdom of the Psalms.” A collaboration with the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), the project began on Monday, June 8, 2020. Stretching over 18 weeks—the number for “life” in Hebrew—it will involve the participation of over fifty influential religious and cultural leaders, who will contribute to an interreligious and cross-cultural exploration of the Book of Psalms throughout this summer.
Focusing on a different psalm each week, PsalmSeason will publish personal reflections, poetry, music, and words of inspiration. Contributors will include musicians, artists, poets, storytellers, and scholars from various religious, spiritual, and secular walks of life, with the goal of “creating an inclusive multivocal conversation.” Led by Rabbi Or Rose, the director of the Miller Center, and Paul Raushenbush, Senior Advisor for Public Affairs & Innovation at IFYC, the project is being hosted on IFYC’s Interfaith America website: https://ifyc.org/interfaithamerica/psalmseason.
The Theology Program has a long history of grant support for both interreligious engagement projects and initiatives focused on religion and the arts, though support for the latter has been somewhat sporadic in the last decades. More recent Theology Program grants have supported projects emphasizing the materiality of religion, including, for example, larger grants to support projects at Yale University, Saint Louis University, and Ohio State University; and smaller, special grants to Bard Graduate Center, Fordham University, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, and the Rothko Chapel. Several recent emergency grants are also supporting engagement with the arts.
PsalmSeason was initially conceived by Rabbi Rose, who before becoming director of the Miller Center was a key leader in a series of Luce-funded interfaith projects that involved collaboration between Hebrew College and Andover Newton Theological Seminary. The proposed project grows thematically out of that earlier work, extending it creatively to meet the needs of the present moment. As the project’s directors write in their proposal: “In this time of global pandemic, people throughout the world are looking for meaningful ways to connect with one another and compelling resources to help them express their grief, fear, yearning, hope, and solidarity.” PsalmSeason aims to respond to and reach a range of those seeking such resources.