Dov Weiss
4th year PhD Student - History of Judaism, University of Chicago Divinity School
BA - Yeshiva College, Yeshiva University, New York, NY (1990, 1993- 1995)
Rabbinic Ordination - Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, Yeshiva University, New York, NY (1995- 1999)
MA - Bernard Revel Graduate School, Yeshiva University, (1995- 1999)
I am currently a third year PhD student in the Divinity School and am a visiting professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Working with Professor Michael Fishbane, my primary area of concentration explores the formation of rabbinic theology in Late Antiquity. Over the next few years, my project will be to uncover the role that values and ethics play as interpretive factors in exegetical theology. More specifically, I will attempt to organize a-historical typologies that illuminate how much weight specific rabbinic voices grant to values/ethics as criterion of interpretation, as well as being historically sensitive to the shifting ethical and cultural values that shape theology in different rabbinic periods.
Before coming to the University of Chicago for doctoral studies, I served as the Director of Operations and taught multiple courses in Talmud and Jewish Law at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT) Rabbinical School in New York (www.yctorah.org). Prior to that, I received rabbinic ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, an affiliate of Yeshiva University, and received an MA in Modern Jewish History from Yeshiva University (Revel Graduate School).
My dream is to one day create an informal, ecumenical adult educational program where people from all backgrounds and disciplines can come to study the richness of the Jewish tradition in a welcoming and warm atmosphere. Besides my work in rabbinic theology and reading Jewish philosophy and existentialist thought, I enjoy playing the guitar, watching Yankee games, and, most of all, listening to the greatest band in the world - U2.