Rabbi Shlomo Yaffe is the Rabbi of Congregation Agudas Achim of West Hartford, Connecticut, Jewish Chaplain to the Hartford Fire Department, a member of the Rabbinical Responder Team at ChabadOnline (www.chabad.org) , Continuing Legal Education lecturer and member of the adult education staff at Chabad of Midtown Manhattan.
Rabbi Yaffe founded and directed the Institute for Jewish Literacy at Chabad of Greater Hartford from 1997 – 2000. The Institute provides a coherent body of Jewish knowledge to the entire spectrum of the Jewish community regardless of background or previous Judaic experience. Rabbi Yaffe leads the Kabbalah Circle (1996- present), making Kabbalistic ideas and texts available to the Greater Hartford community and beyond .
Rabbi Yaffe has also created WITS – the Women’s Intensive Textual/Torah Study Program, which draws women from throughout the spectra of our community for in-depth Torah study.
Rabbi Yaffe has lectured and led seminars throughout North America and in Europe.
Rabbi Yaffe was born in Brooklyn, NY, and raised in Portland, ME, and Los Angeles, CA, He studied at Yeshivot in Miami, London, and New York and received rabbinic ordination from Yeshivat Tomchei Temimim Lubavitch in 1989.
His activities focus on adult and young adult education, seminars, and counseling. During his postgraduate fellowship at the Leeds Kollel in England (1990-1992), he created the Leeds Open Yeshiva, an institution devoted to bringing high quality in-depth Jewish learning to individuals of all ages and backgrounds.
A significant aspect of his work is making the sometimes complex and abstruse world of Jewish mysticism accessible and useful in daily life.
Another area of activity is the application of concepts found in classic Judaic scholarship to the contemporary legal, social, and scientific issues our societies grapple with.
Rabbi Yaffe and his wife Chana, a veteran educator, live in West Hartford, Connecticut with their (bli ayin hara) seven children.
• To Lead is to Follow, To Follow is to Lead: Judaic Perspectives on the Essence of Leadership
- What are the characteristics of the ideal leader?
- How has Judaism’s unique perspectives shaped the character of the relation between the individual, the community and those who lead them?
- What is the place of individuality in the relationship with a powerful leadership figure?
- What are the spiritual dimensions of varying responses to leadership?
• “What can Kabbalah do for me?” *
A discussion for the curious. Explore how the Kabbalistic approach can enhance our lives
• The Translucent Wall:
Communication beyond Death
Life beyond Death
The inner meaning of Kaddish and Yahrtzeit
• Recycling isn’t just for beer cans;
Reincarnation, Resurrection, the Kabbalah and what it means to us here and now.
• Dreams, coincidences and insight: A Kabbalistic exploration
of the meanings of dreams, visions and premonitions. We will also explore the spiritual significance
of sleep and the profound secret that the very fact of dreaming holds.
• Where Goes the World? - Fear and Hope in an era of SARS and Nuclear
Terrorism: What does the Mystical tradition of Judaism tell us about the future of humanity? Daily,
we are confronted by new diseases, the ever increasing access of callous and irresponsible people
to weapons of indescribable danger, and severe breakdowns in family and social
structure. Join us to explore:
How we can use the spiritual treasures of the Kabbalah to nurture hope and transcend fear.
How to transform the darkness that imprisons us into illumination that guides us.
How to play the vital role each one of us has in transforming our cosmos into a new reality
of Peace, Unity and Abundance for all Existence
How we all can activate the “Redeemer” within each one of us.
• Who’s in Charge Here? Freedom of Choice and Divine Direction. When we make
choices in our lives, are they really free? Could we really have chosen differently? Are we driven by birth,
upbringing social circumstance or by something that is uniquely our own? How much does G-d plan things,
and what does he leave to us? Join us to explore the some interesting perspectives on these questions
from the mystical teachings of the Kabbalah
• "Kabbalanomics” How the Kabbalah can help us understand the nature of the economy,
the lessons we can extract from its workings and how to best approach our involvement in economic life
• Genetic Engineering: Designer babies – When you can choose your baby’s sex appearance
and genetic predispositions- should you?
• Laws and ethics of War in Judaism - What do classical Jewish texts say about?
- Justifications for War
- Protecting noncombatants
- Non-conventional weaponry
- Interrogation
- Treaties
• Innovative Preservation - the thought of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
The Lubavticher Rebbe broke new ground in every conceptual and practical area of Judaism, while remaining the
strongest defender of the immutability of its traditions, we will explore the ideas that hold the key to this paradox.