Rabbi Dr. Levi Cooper is Senior Faculty at Pardes, teaching Jewish Law and Hasidut. He holds an LL.B., LL.M. and Ph.D from Bar-Ilan University, where he currently teaches in their Faculty of Law. Levi has been awarded multiple post-doctoral research grants, held academic visitor and educational advisory roles in Europe and Asia, and written extensively for academic publications.
Known as the Maggid of Melbourne, Levi hails from Australia. He currently lives in Zur Hadassa, where he has served as rabbi since 2005, co-founded the Lavi Primary School, and spearheaded other communal initiatives.
What can a Hasidic master, a halakhic debate, or an ancient rabbinic text teach us about the world we inhabit today? In The Maggid of Melbourne, Pardes faculty member Rabbi Dr. Levi Cooper explores Jewish ideas across an unusually broad…
Podcast series, The Maggid of Melbourne
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, as Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) fought his way across Europe, a group of Hasidic masters dedicated intense spiritual efforts to usher in the messianic era. One Hasidic account of this episode appeared in the…
Jewish calendar, Tisha B’av
In November 2022, OpenAI – a non-profit organization – released a free preview of ChatGPT. This triggered widespread interest in generative AI and leading to the ongoing AI boom. By March 2023, OpenAI released a new model – GPT-4 –…
Self & spirituality, Hasidut
The notion of a women serving as pontifex maximus, the bishop of Rome, sovereign of papal states, and the visible head of the Catholic Church – seems incongruous. Yet a legend first recorded in the thirteenth century identifies just such…
Self & spirituality, Hasidut
The Passover Seder night is all about the faculty of speech. We talk, explain, pose questions and offer answers, discuss, and recount the story of our people. Indeed, the Hebrew word for Passover, Pesah, is a portmanteau for peh sah…
Self & spirituality, Hasidut, Jewish prayer
The Hebrew month of Shevat is when nature in the Land of Israel awakens from its winter slumber. It may still be cold and wet outside, but the trees sense the lengthening daylight hours that herald the oncoming seasonal change. …
Jewish calendar, Tu Bishvat
Rabbi Yitzhak of Radziwiłłów was active as a hasidic master in the early nineteenth century. His father, the maggid (preacher) Rabbi Yehiel Mikhel of Złoczów (1731-1780s), was a hasidic leader in the early days of nascent Hasidism. Each of Rabbi…
Self & spirituality, Spirituality
The Battle of the Vale of Siddim – or as it is known in Jewish tradition: The War of the Four Kings against the Five (Genesis 14:1-17) – was a result of longstanding tensions in the Jordan River plain during…
Self & spirituality, Hasidut
In 1933, Rabbi Yisrael Bekmeister (1877-1954) published a twenty-page collection of hasidic tales. The collection included a fascinating tale that speaks to assessing the past year, as we approach the High Holy Days. **** Bekmeister’s slender booklet included fifteen tales…
Self & spirituality, Reflection, Spirituality, Jewish calendar, High Holidays, Yom Kippur
A collection of essays on Tractate Berakhot, combining rabbinical commentary and Hassidic lore to explore the depths of prayer.
Journey through captivating, lesser-known landscapes of Hasidism through a tapestry of stories, history, people, and communities.
A searching analysis of passages from Berakhot and commentators, uncovering relevance and inspiration for our generation.