Rabbi Sharon Brous: The Amen Effect

Description

Books & Books and TBAM present: Rabbi Sharon Brous – The Amen Effect

From one of our country’s most prominent rabbis, an inspiring book about the power of community based on one of her most impactful sermons. In a time of loneliness and isolation, social rupture and alienation, what will it take to mend our broken hearts and rebuild our society?

Sharon Brous—a leading American rabbi—makes the case that the spiritual work of our time, as instinctual as it is counter-cultural, is to find our way to one other in celebration, in sorrow, and in solidarity. To show up for each other in moments of joy and pain, vulnerability and possibility, to invest in relationships of shared purpose and build communities of care.

Brous contends that it is through honoring our most basic human instinct– the yearning for real connection– that we reawaken our shared humanity and begin to heal. This kind of sacred presence is captured by the word amen, a powerful ancient idea that we affirm the fullness of one another’s experience by demonstrating, in body and word: “I see you. You are not alone.”

An acclaimed preacher and story-teller, Brous pairs heart-driven anecdotes from her experience building and pastoring to a leading-edge faith community over the past two decades with ancient Jewish wisdom and contemporary science. The result is a clarion call: the sense of belonging engendered by our genuine presence is not only a social and biological need, but a moral and spiritual necessity.

With original insights and practical tools, The Amen Effect translates foundational ideas into simple practices that connect us to our better angels, offering a blueprint for a more meaningful life and a more connected and caring world.

Rabbi Sharon Brous is the senior and founding rabbi of IKAR, a Los Angeles-based Jewish community that launched in 2004 to reinvigorate Jewish practice and inspire people of faith to reclaim a soulful, justice-driven voice. Her 2016 TED talk, “Reclaiming Religion,” has been viewed by more than 1.5 million people.

In 2013, Brous blessed President Obama and Vice President Biden at the Inaugural National Prayer Service, and in 2021 returned to bless President Biden and Vice President Harris, and then led the White House Passover Seder with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff..She was named #1 on the Newsweek/The Daily Beast list of most influential Rabbis in America, and has been recognized by The Forward and Jerusalem Post as one of the fifty most influential Jews.