Good morning and Namaste.

This morning, it's a pleasure for us to invite Rabbi Ben Sprat again to the center, to our ashram to give his talk.

Rabbi Spratt serves at the senior rabbi of congregation Rodaf Shalom

close by right here at 7 West 83rd Street.

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah,

Rabbi Spratt spent his early years

exploring his Jewish identity. His journey took him through the conservative

renewal, orthodox, and reconstructionist worlds of Judaism before finding a home within the

reform movement. He graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2001 from the Honors College of the University of Oregon

as a member of Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in Psychology and Religious Studies.

He earned distinguished honors for his thesis on early Jewish mysticism. He was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary

of America in May 2008, concentrating in Jewish philosophy. In his years at the seminary,

the rabbi was the recipient of many awards and prizes in Talmud, philosophy, homiletics, and the Bible.

He centers his rabbinate on the values of connection, collaboration, and belonging.

Rabbi Spratt has also served as a religious school teacher,

a religious school director,

and a chaplain at Lennox Hill Hospital

and Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.

His highly reviewed book, Awaken's, American Jewish Transformations in Identity, Leadership, and Belonging,

was published in 2022. The subject of his talk today is

searching for the divine, and exploration of Jewish theology.

Welcome. Good morning everyone and an honor to be with you and I know that in the midst of clock changes and things we may find our neurons in a different time period than we are right now.

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