When We Gather in Wonder

Something pretty darn exciting is happening next month. For the first time in what feels like a long time, our yeshiva will be launching back into that revelatory, connective, electric, heart-opening space of an in-person SVARA bet midrash. Many of y’all know what this feels like firsthand and can recall one-night-only programming in Chicago, weekend-long retreats in the Bay Area, day-long pop-ups in the Twin Cities, and partnerships with local synagogues across the country. But for many folks, in-person learning with SVARA meant one thing and one thing only: Queer Talmud Camp (or QTC). From 2016 until 2019, QTC was a one-of-a-kind convergence of so many different kinds of magic. It was a space that ignited y’all’s fiery love affair with Talmud and the unique experience of learning in the SVARA method, surrounded on all sides by the SVARA community. QTC was a queer-forward nerdy revision and repair of the classic camp experience out in the woods. It combined the sizzle of campfires and s’mores with the heated energy of nearly 100 chevrutot wading deep through Option 3-realness. How can one capture how a gathering like that has served as the low-rumbling stoked coals behind SVARA for all these years? In “The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters”, author Priya Parker writes:

“Gatherings crackle and flourish when real thought goes into them, when (often invisible) structure is baked into them, and when a host has the curiosity, willingness, and generosity of spirit to try.”

We like to think that all learning spaces at SVARA crackle, and we know there’s a special sort of something that happens when we come together in physical space. There’s a potent magic that is accessible only when we honor the craft of gathering. Over the last twenty years, SVARA’s in-person learning opportunities have attempted to honor that craft by meeting our learners where they are and honoring where they hope to go. This became especially important as we transitioned to an online-only model for our batei midrash in these years following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a few short weeks, we are building upon all the unique wisdom and joy we’ve cultivated in our virtual community by returning to our roots with five dazzling Day Camps happening across the country—playful and generative spaces where every root revealed, meal shared, song sung, and high five, well, high-fived, over a brave recitation, embodies that adage of our queer rabbinic ancestors: 

וּמִנַּיִן לִשְׁנַיִם שֶׁיּוֹשְׁבִין וְעוֹסְקִין בַּתּוֹרָה שֶׁשְּׁכִינָה עִמָּהֶם — שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר:

 ״אָז נִדְבְּרוּ יִרְאֵי ה׳ אִישׁ אֶל רֵעֵהוּ וַיַּקְשֵׁב ה׳ וגו׳.

From where do we learn that two who sit and get busy with Torah study, the Divine Presence is with them? As it is stated (Malachi 3:16): “Then the G!D-fearers spoke one with the other, and G!D listened…” (BT Berakhot 6a)

What is it about this passage that speaks so directly to the experience of gathering at SVARA? The core of this Talmudic passage comes alive through a deep dive into two words. The first, “G!D-fearers”—יראי ה׳, has the root ירא which also commonly means to be “in awe / a state of wonder.” We could translate this phrase to be “those in awe of G!D”, “those in wonder about the Divine”. The second word is Shekhina שכינה, here translated as “the Divine Presence”, but also has at its root שכן meaning “to dwell” and “source of inspiration.” What emerges from this passage is that when we gather in wonder, we both create the container for inspiration and become that very inspiration itself. The SVARA bet midrash is a space that revels in wonder, that goes deep into the granular, cellular level of words in order to organically discover their meaning, and then blast further than we ever thought possible into a new cosmos of meaning-making. Together we create a holy universe that is not only transformative to our own lives but potentially for the whole world. 

Crafting any in-person gathering takes a tremendous amount of care, especially when the goal is to offer a space that can be enjoyed and accessed by the entirety of our gorgeous SVARA community. With this in mind, we might explore one more word in our passage, יושבין meaning “sitting”, or referring to those who sit to get busy with Torah study. The root ישב which is commonly translated as “to sit” or “dwell” (not dissimilar to שכן, by the way) can also mean “to settle” or “be settled” in a place. For many of us, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an immense amount of displacement and an unshakable feeling of being unsettled. Whether it has been our social gatherings, our family living structures, our workplace or our sources of culture and learning, we have been in a many-years process of relocation and re-grounding ourselves. 

As time has passed, we have sourced each other for tools of resilience. Many of us have become more settled in routines of virtual gathering and virtual work. Some of us are at the forefront of securing safeties and protections for folx who are immunocompromised. Others are actively using their own svara סברא (moral intuition) to help dismantle ableist structures that, before and during this pandemic, ignored the warnings and wisdoms of disabled activists and their communities. There is much good that has evolved in this time—we have been struggling to survive and we are finding ways to gloriously thrive.

But that is not true for everyone. Some of our folx have found virtual gatherings to be lack luster and isolating, even detrimental to their mental health and well-being. Some have found the long days indoors not only to be straining on the spirit but deeply straining on the body. One of the most important wisdoms that we have gained over these years in pandemic is that in order to make a place where people can feel truly settled, we must be fiercely conscious and intentional about accessibility—as it relates to our learning and our health.

We have been learning from our disabled teachers at SVARA as well as COVID-protocols consultants from outside our yeshiva in order to find a new Option 3—a way to combine the magic of all the spaces that we have, together, cultivated here at SVARA in order to expand the ways our students can sit, ישב , together and be able to learn with wonder and deep presence. What makes this kind of experience unique is the way the magic of the bet midrash flows into meals which flows into hang out time in the grass, which flows into a song circle around a campfire, which flows into the quiet nighttime space alone with ones thoughts where the whole day’s adventure slowly begins to metabolize into the fibers of your being. 

Next month, as we make this very new (and in some ways vulnerable) move back into in-person offerings, our day camps all around the country will be windows into what could be the world to come. We invite you to dwell in wonder with us, to bring a new chevruta or a group of friends who have never had this experience of SVARA before. After all, SVARA is a yeshiva ישיבה, a place where we build a settled place of comfort and collective. Come be with us, whether you’re a seasoned Queer Talmud Camper or you’re looking for a new way to engage with your queer radical tradition. We are looking forward to saying a Shehechiyanu שהחיינו with you—a blessing for new beginnings, a gratitude for having been kept alive to and for this very moment, that we should be able to arrive to it again and again with renewed wisdom for doing better and best by all our people. And let us say, AMEN אמן !

Check out everything we’re serving up at our five day camps. Registration closes 7/19!