Body, Soul, and Self: Jewish and Hasidic Perspectives from Antiquity to Modernity (PIHT 2026 Fall Symposium)

The Princeton Institute for Hasidic Thought invites you to a symposium on the interplay between corporeality and spirituality in Hasidism and the broader Jewish tradition, held at Princeton University on Sunday, November 1st. Bringing together scholars and students from across disciplines, the symposium considers how body, soul, and selfhood have been understood in Jewish thought from antiquity to modernity, and what bearing these questions have on intellectual inquiry and lived experience today. The symposium is equally open to those well versed in Hasidic thought and to those approaching it for the first time.

The day's programming will consist of three sessions, moving from historical grounding to textual encounter to contemporary reflection.

The first session traces the historical and religious development of thinking on body and soul within the Jewish tradition, from biblical and rabbinic sources through medieval Jewish philosophy and into modern Jewish philosophical frameworks. This session situates Hasidism's treatment of corporeality and spirituality within a longer intellectual lineage, showing both what it inherits and what it reworks. The second session is a text-study session. Attendees will break into small groups to read and discuss primary Hasidic sources on body and soul, drawing on a range of traditions within the literature. This session is designed to give participants direct engagement with the texts themselves, rather than only with scholarship about them, and welcomes both those reading Hasidic sources for the first time and those with deeper familiarity. The day closes with a panel discussion on the relevance of these questions in the present, bringing scholars into conversation on how historical and textual material on body and soul bears on contemporary questions of selfhood, embodiment, and lived experience.

Across the three sessions, the symposium takes as its premise that questions of body and soul are not settled matters that can be relegated to the past, but ones that remain live and central to how we understand human experience. We welcome your participation in what promises to be a day of deep learning and shared conversation.

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:

    Leora Batnitzky (Princeton University) Clemence Boulouque (Columbia University) Dhananjay Jagannathan (Hunter College)

       Danielle Knafo Eli Rubin (Chabad.org)

Symposium Schedule:

9–9:45 AM Breakfast

9:45–10 AM Opening Remarks

10:00–11:30 AM Composing the Self: Body, Soul, and Personal Identity from the Bible to Modernity

         Prof. Leora Batnitzky (Princeton University)

11:30–11:45 Break

11:45–1:30 PM What Does the Body Know? An Encounter with Hasidic Texts

         Breakout groups with an introduction by Dr. Eli Rubin (Chabad.org)

1:30–2:45 PM  Lunch

2:45–4:00 PM  After the Self: Subjectivity and the Contemporary Moment

         Prof. Clemence Boulouque (Columbia University), Dr. Danielle Knafo, and Prof.  Dhananjay Jagannathan (Hunter College)