Claiming Our Human Lineage
It’s only 2026 and I already have AI fatigue. Not the cognitive fatigue that is caused by overuse of AI due to the brain’s inability to process so much information…
Hot Off the Shtender
Still Being Shaped
by Maggie Kraus
Content warning: This piece explores death and the specific loss of life associated with the HIV/AIDS crisis. I don’t know how else to say this, but I’ve been thinking a…
Play! For the Sake of Tradition
Last week, SVARA’s Associate Rosh Yeshiva Laynie Soloman and I spent Kabbalat Shabbat with Lab/Shul, the spiritual community of one of our Shaping Tradition honorees (and my chevruta), Shira Kline.…
Find Your Minyan
Leading up to this past zman, when the SVARA Faculty was deciding what text we might teach in a moment of growing fascism, increasing hostility towards queer and trans people,…
Finding Home in a New Here
by Maggie Kraus
“To settle in the landscape means to stop our wandering and say: here!” -Christian Norberg-Schulz, The concept of dwelling (1985) Tonight, I am saying goodbye to a two-family house I…
So That Torah Will Not Be Forgotten
Will the Torah be remembered because of what we say in class? Rabbi Hiyya knew that the answer was no. In Bava Metzia 85b, we encounter Reish Lakish marking graves…
Talmud and Totes
I love an organizing project. There is nothing quite like going through a collection of neglected tote bags, separating their contents into little piles and taking the time and intention…
The Obligation of Uncertainty
Two weeks ago, I sat at my dining table with my friend and SVARA-nik, molly block, who is also a Kohenet in my community. The morning felt easeful and sweet…
Pushing the Tradition Forward on Every Page
I came to SVARA in 2013 as a learner—just another curious person in the bet midrash, moving through a sugya root by root, slowly discovering how the tradition opens itself…
You’re Here. Who’s With You?
by Maggie Kraus
This time of year always arrives with equal amounts of stress and delight, but ever since I started working at SVARA, it has also become a season of witnessing just…
Trust Your Ancestors, Trust Your Descendants
אמר רב יהודה אמר רב בשעה שעלה משה למרום מצאו להקב”ה שיושב וקושר כתרים לאותיות אמר לפניו רבש”ע מי מעכב על ידך אמר לו אדם אחד יש שעתיד להיות בסוף…
Forgetting (and Remembering) Our Names
In January, I traveled to Nigeria with a group of Black American and South American Jews. In the months since I have been slowly integrating that experience alongside personal upheaval,…