Highly-Regarded Expert on Spirituality to Give Talk at Holy Cross on 'Living a Life That Matters'

WORCESTER, Mass. – As part of the Second-Year Opportunities Program, or 2YO, Harold S. Kushner, Rabbi Laureate of Temple Israel of Natick, will give a talk titled “Living a Life That Matters” on Oct. 12 at 7:30 p.m. in the Hogan Campus Center Ballroom at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public.

Kushner will draw from information in his book of the same title as well as from his newest best-seller, Overcoming Life’s Disappointments. He is also author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, an international best seller first published in 1981. The book has been translated into 14 languages and has been selected by members of the Book of the Month Club as one of the 10 most influential books of recent years. One critic has called it “the most important book of popular theology ever written in America.”

He has also written When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough, which was awarded the Christopher Medal for its contribution to the exaltation of the human spirit. In 1995, Kushner was honored by the Christophers, a Roman Catholic organization, as one of 50 people who have made the world a better place in the last 50 years. He has twice been nominated for the Templeton Prize, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for Religion. He has also written six other New York Times best sellers, including his recent meditation on the 23rd Psalm, The Lord is My Shepard. With novelist Chaim Potok, he is co-author of the new Conservative commentary on the Torah, Etz Hayim, which has been enthusiastically received by hundreds of congregations since its publication in the fall of 2001.

Kushner was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduated from Columbia University. He was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1960 and awarded a doctoral degree in Bible by the Seminary in 1972. He has six honorary doctorates, has studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and taught at Clark University and the Rabbinical School of the Jewish Theological Seminary. For four years, he edited the magazine Conservative Judaism. In 1999, the national organization Religion in American Life honored him as their clergyman of the year.

2YO encourages sophomores to look beyond the gates of Holy Cross and reflect carefully on the path of their academic careers so that they can make the most of their remaining time at the College. Living a Life That Matters was the suggested summer reading for Class of 2009 (second-year) students.

The event is funded by the Lilly Vocation Discernment Initiative at Holy Cross under a grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc.