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 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.

Rabbi Itamar Rosensweig is a maggid shiur (professor of Jewish law and jurisprudence) at Yeshiva University, a dayan (rabbinic judge) and chaver beit din at the Beth Din of America, and the rav of the Shtiebel of Lower Merion. He holds a secondary appointment as an assistant professor of philosophy at Yeshiva College and serves as the chair of Jewish studies at the Sy Syms School of Business. He received his semikha, Yoreh Yoreh and Yadin Yadin, from RIETS, where he was a fellow of the Wexner Kollel Elyon and editor-in-chief of the Beit Yitzchak Journal of Talmudic and Halakhic Studies. He received his BA, with honors, in physics and philosophy from Yeshiva University and an MA and PhD in medieval Jewish history from YU’s Bernard Revel Graduate School. He also holds an MA in Philosophy from Columbia University and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania. Rabbi Rosensweig studied Talmud with Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein at Yeshivat Har Etzion and the history of halakha with Prof. Haym Soloveitchik at Yeshiva University. He studied for many years with his father, Rabbi Michael Rosensweig, and for a decade attended his shiur at Yeshiva University. Previously, he taught an advanced Talmud shiur at Columbia University’s Kraft Center and served as the resident scholar at Congregation Ahavath Torah in Englewood, New Jersey.

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

Rabbi Itamar Rosensweig

Key Information

Eligibility

Location & Dates

Cost

Tentative Daily Schedule