When the Arc Feels So Alive

Julie Batz (she/her) is a longtime SVARA faculty member who has accompanied many of our learners through Queer Talmud Camp, Queer Talmud for Beginners Mind, and our Open Bet Midrash classes. In a recent conversation, she reflected on what’s most present for her at the close of the Gemirna Kollel’s very first year, from the intentional sequencing of texts to the ways learners are stretching into new skills and levels of depth.

When I look back on this first year of Talmud I in the Gemirna Kollel, I see that Bronwen and I have been building, nurturing, and experimenting alongside our students as they prepare for whatever comes next in their learning and in their lives. We’ve been reflecting while still very much in the thick of teaching (especially as we prepare for next year’s cohorts), exploring what has worked well and what we hope will continue to evolve.

One of the most gratifying realizations has been how well the arc of this year’s curriculum has held together for our learners. We started our learning at the beginning of the Talmud, with the first mishnah of Masekhet Berakhot and an exploration of prayer. It’s one of those pieces that so clearly reflects the Rabbis’ project—this wild, creative, audacious process of “just making that shit up,” as Benay likes to say with great affection — here, it’s prayer! From there, we moved into a piece of Gemara where we explored a further expansion of this ritual and practice innovation, tracing arguments about ways to connect with the Divine outside of the Temple (moving worship from the Temple to the people). As we explored the sugya, our learners were able to practice and deepen core skills — precision and fluidity with SVARA method, the “agendas” of the gemara, understanding the layers of the text, analyzing kra proofs — in an 8+ hour a week footprint of study.

Then we shifted into a long aggadic text, the famous story of Tanur Shel Akhnai/ The Oven of Akhnai. Often, this text is approached in a limited way to make a particular point about rabbinic authority. We chose instead to expand our exploration, placing the sugya in its larger context of ona’at d’varim/oppressive speech and continuing to read into the more complicated sections that are often left out. As that move opened up a new level of learning (for example, a deeper dive into Aramaic skills) — it felt like we were stretching together, deepening both skills and theological imagination in the same breath.

Now, in this final stretch of the year, we’re learning the sugya of the Wayward and Rebellious Son/Ben Sorer U’Moreh. It’s a halakhic text, very different in flavor from where we had started our learning—with concentrated, specific, complicated moves that require a different kind of analysis in order to track what’s happening. The Rabbis are grappling with a troubling piece of Torah law and, essentially, narrowing it out of existence. The learning is happening in real time for all of us — and it’s been exciting to see that learning supported by the curricular arc over the course of the year. 

A huge part of what makes this arc feel so alive is our “deep bench” of faculty. Having other teachers—like our Faculty Fellow, Natalie, who taught a few sessions in January, and Benay, who guided several sessions of the current sugya—has been a gift. Even though we’re all teaching the same method, as Laynie always reminds us, it’s not about teaching like one another; it’s about the method moving through each of us in our own way. That means students encounter different textures and perspectives in the bet midrash, which helps them see the texts and themselves in new ways.

After twenty years of SVARA’s growth, it feels both obvious and thrilling that we’re continuing to evolve our project, creating a place for people to immerse in deeper learning. It’s a joyful, complex project to spend time in, and I’m so looking forward to what’s ahead.