Blake Center

What does it mean to be human? How do we understand our responsibilities to family, community, and nation? What inheritance must we transmit to contribute to the flourishing of Western and Jewish civilization?

At the Blake Center—a stunning retreat in Connecticut dedicated to serious learning about the American Founding and Western Insert tradition—students will wrestle with the deepest theological and philosophical questions of our time. Led by Tikvah’s Chief Educational Officer, Rabbi Mark Gottlieb, this institute explores the Jewish understanding of the human person, the relationship between tradition and freedom, the proper ordering of men and women in society, and our duty to preserve and renew what is sacred. Drawing from the Hebrew Bible, the insights of Jewish sages, and the great moral philosophers of the West, students will confront the urgent question: How do we live well in the modern age?

This is an institute for students who refuse easy answers—who recognize that the recovery of the West begins with a recovery of moral clarity about the human condition itself.

Rabbi Mark Gottlieb is the interim head of school of the Adelson School in Las Vegas. He is also the chief education officer of Tikvah and founding dean of the Tikvah Scholars Program. Prior to joining Tikvah, Rabbi Gottlieb served as head of school at Yeshiva University High School for Boys and principal of the Maimonides School in Brookline, MA, and has taught at The Frisch School, Ida Crown Jewish Academy, Hebrew Theological College, Loyola University in Chicago, and the University of Chicago. He received his BA from Yeshiva College, rabbinical ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, and an MA in Philosophy from the University of Chicago, where his doctoral studies focused on the moral and political thought of Alasdair MacIntyre. Rabbi Gottlieb’s work has been featured twice in the Wall Street Journal and his writing has appeared in First Things, Public Discourse, SEVEN: An Anglo-American Literary Review, The University Bookman, Tradition Online, the Algemeiner, From Within the Tent: Essays on the Weekly Parsha from Rabbis and Professors of Yeshiva University, and, most recently, Strauss, Spinoza & Sinai: Orthodox Judaism and Modern Questions of Faith. He is a trustee of the Hildebrand Project and serves on the Editorial Committee of Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought. He lives in Teaneck, NJ, with his wife and family.

God, Man and the Future of the West

Hosted in cooperation with Hillsdale College at The Blake Center for Faith & Freedom

July 12 – 16, 2026Somers, CT

Application deadline: February 2, 2026

Highlighted Faculty

Rabbi Mark Gottlieb

Key Information

Eligibility

Location & Dates

Cost

Tentative Daily Schedule