Mycelial Magic of Codification
In the first halakha class I ever took, we sat in a circle, opened up a book called the Mishnah…
Hot Off the Shtender
When Trying is More Than Enough
by Maggie Kraus
A very hot take: I love when the summer ends. Don’t get me wrong, this folkloric season brings with it…
Akiva, You Have Comforted Me
Nichum or nechemta, which mean comfort and consolation, are key words at this point in the Jewish calendar. We’ve…
Seeking an Incomplete Comfort
One of my earliest memories from my time at Gann Academy, a pluralistic Jewish high school where I taught before…
A Season of So Many Questions
As a member of SVARA’s teaching team, I get asked a lot of questions. Being in conversation with our learning…
Lamenting Across Time
Growing up, my mum, whose grandparents hailed from the Jewish community of the island of Rhodes, would always cut any…
The Time-Traveling Talmud
When I became Jewish, I didn’t realize that I was looking for ancestors. And yet, as I emerged from the…
To Know and Be Known
A few weeks back, it fell on me to give a benediction at a breakfast for the Boy Scouts of…
Love. Awe. Holiness. Wholeness.
Over the past few months, ever since we published the wisdom of the Trans Halakha Project, I have wondered how…
SVARA Is One of Those Spaces
Last week, we gathered in joyful community for Shaping Tradition, a first-of-its-kind virtual celebration to reflect upon twenty years of…
Like Yehoshua, We Were Salty and Sassy
by Jhos Singer
I recently had a meeting in downtown San Francisco. I got off BART (aka the subway) and was greeted by…
Where Is Mitzvah-Land?
“Welcome to mitzvah-land.” I first heard this phrase in 2017, standing in the back of the bet midrash at Queer…