Rabbi Alan Brill , Ph.D.
Cooperman/Ross Endowed Chair for Jewish-Christian Studies; Director of Graduate Studies;
Professor
Department of Religion
(973) 761-9463
Email
Fahy Hall
Room 244
Rabbi Alan Brill, Ph.D.
Cooperman/Ross Endowed Chair for Jewish-Christian Studies; Director of Graduate Studies;
Professor
Department of Religion
Dr. Alan Brill is the Cooperman/Ross Endowed Chair for Jewish-Christian Studies at
Seton Hall University, where he teaches Jewish studies in the Department of Religion
and the Jewish-Christian Studies Graduate Program. He specializes in interfaith theology,
Jewish mysticism, modern Jewish thought and contemporary Jewish Orthodoxy and offers
courses in medieval and modern Jewish thought, Jewish mysticism, interfaith encounter
and Jewish theology. Dr. Brill is also the author of Judaism and World Religions: Christianity, Islam, and Eastern Religions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), Judaism and Other Religions: Models of Understanding (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and Thinking God: The Mysticism of Rabbi Zadok of Lublin (Yeshiva University Press, 2002).
Dr. Brill received his B.A., M.A. and Ordination from Yeshiva University and his Ph.D.
from the Department of Theology at Fordham University. He was selected to deliver
the 2008 Gannon Lecture at Fordham University and was the invited Jewish speaker representing
Hebrew College at the Boston Theological Institute in 2011. He has also authored many
articles on the interface of traditional Jewish thinkers with philosophy and the surrounding
culture.
In 2014 Dr. Brill won a prestigious Fulbright Senior Scholar Award for research and
teaching at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh in India. During his
award, he taught two graduate-level courses in India. Dr. Brill was also awarded a
Dorset Visiting Fellowship for two extended stays at Yarnton Manor at Oxford University,
UK.
Currently Dr. Brill is working on a monograph comparing Judaism and Hinduism, tentatively
entitled, "A Rabbi on the Ganges: A Jewish-Hindu Encounter." One can read about his
project here. Dr. Brill is also working on a full length study of the history of the ideologies
of Modern Orthodox Judaism from 1800-2000. This study explores the differences among
Orthodox groups entering modernity and assesses the wide variety of possible interactions
between modernity and traditional religion. Dr. Brill situates this investigation
within the broader question of "What is 'Modern' about Modern Orthodoxy?" By comparing
the trajectory of Jewish Orthodoxy over the last two hundred years with that of Catholicism
and Protestantism, in its many varieties, Dr. Brill will attempt to identify multiple
modernities and reflect upon their implications.
Education
- Ph.D., Fordham University
- Ordination, Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, Yeshiva University
- B.A., Yeshiva College
Scholarship
- "Mitnaged Worship." Daat 79-80, editor Moshe Hallamish, 5-33, January 2015.
- "Immanuel Jakobovits and the Birth of Jewish Medical Ethics." Halakhic Realities: Collected Essays on Brain Death, editor Zev Farber, Jerusalem: Maggid Press, 327-348, January 2015.
- "Maharal and the Early Modern Self." Maharal Overtures: Biography, Doctrine, Influence, editor Elchanan Reiner, 305-330, January 2015.
- Judaism and World Religions: Encountering Christianity, Islam, and Eastern Traditions. NY: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012.
- Judaism and Other Religions: Models of Understanding. NY: Palgrave-Mcmillan, 2010.
- Thinking God: The Mysticism of Rabbi Zadok of Lublin. NY: YU Press, 2003.