Yeshiva Calendar ’21-’22

SUMMER ZMAN

June – July 2022

June 9th	Thu	New SVARA-nik Orientation (8:00-10:00 PM ET)
June 14th	Mon	Summer Zman Begins
July 21st	Thu	End of Summer Zman

LEARNING BY MONTH

There are many opportunities throughout the year to get some Talmud served up the old fashioned way—hardcore, queer, and radically inclusive—with SVARA! Below you’ll find information about daily/weekly drop-in learning, as well as our lineup of upcoming multi-week classes. Check out what’s comin’ up at your fave queer yeshiva, and we can’t wait to welcome to you to the SVARA bet midrash! Not sure where to start? Here’s how to get started on your Queer Talmud journey!

All of the learning spaces below follow SVARA’s accessibility protocols, and aspire to our community norms.

April-June

MISHNAH COLLECTIVE

Daily (except Saturday) at 1:30 PM ET | 12:30 PM CT | 10:30 AM PT for 30 minutes | JOIN HERE!

We meet daily to ground in this uncertain time in our practice of learning & studying in community, digging into a chunk of mishnah (y’all remember, Torah 2.0!) from Masechet Avot (also known as Pirkei Avot) each day with SVARA Faculty & your Queer Talmud comrades. This is a drop-in space, and all are welcome; join us once, every day, or anything in between! If you’re curious about learning at SVARA, this is a great place to start! We can’t wait to learn with you! Access note: SVARA’s Daily Drop-in Mishnah Collective is live-captioned. No prior Hebrew experience or learning necessary to participate!

THE ORAL TALMUD [online, live-streamed]

Weekly on Thursdays at 12:00 PM ET | 11:00 AM CT | 9:00 AM PT | WATCH HERE

Each week in The Oral Talmud, Benay Lappe & Dan Libenson offer an introduction to Talmud through a traditionally radical lens. In each session, Benay & Dan explore key stories and other material from the Talmud that was left there by the early Rabbis as a how-to manual for re-imagining Judaism after the previous version “crashes.” Alternating weeks feature conversations with scholars and thinkers on Talmud to understand the Talmud more deeply from the perspective of contemporary academic study and creative re-interpretation. There’s no registration required! Join each week, drop in whenever you can, or watch recordings of previous sessions here.

COMMUNITY LOSS ADAPTATION PROJECT: QUEER BEREAVEMENT SPIRITUAL SUPPORT GROUP

taught by Rabbi Elliot Kukla

Grief is a normal response to loss. Being with an understanding community can help bring comfort and healing to mourners. This group will provide a supportive, non-judgmental context with a queer spiritual framing to form empathetic connections.

This group is for people who are grieving the death of a person or people who were important to them. We will be honoring the experience of grieving in the context of pandemic and during this time of vast communal loss. We will also be naming the particular type of isolation that can come with queer mourning as well as celebrating the diversity and complexity of our relationships. We will use spiritual tools from Jewish tradition however no Jewish knowledge or identification is required.

SVARA STREET TEAM

DIASPORIC DINNER PARTY

facilitated by Olivia Gowen

Jewish tradition often calls for an abundance of food and good company and we refuse to let the distance between us stop our family from gathering! Log on to a digital dinner party hosted by the SVARA Street Team to relax and gab at our ever-growing table. Want to share the same food? Log on early to have a cook-along with SVARA-nik Olivia Gowen where you can learn a new recipe. What could be better than dishing over shared dishes?

VI’YE’HI NOAM (AND IT WILL BE PLEASURE): OMER COUNTING HABURA

facilitated by Cole Krawitz

Join SVARA’s Street Team in Counting the Omer, a seven-week spiritual transformation practice that takes place from the second night of Pesach until Erev Shavuot. Ritual facilitator, writer, and transformational leadership coach Cole Krawitz will lead us in decoding the Omer counting prayers in a prep session. After that, we’ll gather weekly to delve into the Kabbalistic practice of immersing in Sefirot while counting the Omer, and share methods for setting up daily accountability to be accompanied in this embodied, sweetening, transformational journey.

REVOLUTIONARY READING GROUP: HESCHEL’S THE SABBATH

facilitated by Robin Banerji and Colin Coltrera

Join the SVARA Street Team for a revolutionary SVARA reading group exploring Abraham Joshua Heschel’s The Sabbath. This book explores the beauty, holiness, and structure of Shabbat. We’ll meet four times on Zoom to discuss synchronously, with opportunities to check in on Discord in between! Along the way, we’ll explore our own embodied experiences of Shabbat—in all their varied beauty—to shed light on our study. Come to learn, explore, be in community, and bring holiness to your week and to the world.

WHERE IS IT WRITTEN? YENTL: FROM ISAAC SINGER TO STREISAND
Movie and Story Group

facilitated by Leah Trachtenberg and Lilyfish Gomberg

How did “Yentl the Yeshiva Boy”, a yiddish folktale originally authored by Isaac Bashevis Singer, became Barbara Streisand’s passion project? How did this iconic tale of gender play and cross-dressing find its way into the hearts of the masses? Learn with SVARA-niks Leah Trachtenberg and LilyFish Gomberg about the similarities and differences between the story and movie, and how these two Jewish storytellers created the “Yentl” we know and love.

June-July

SUMMER ZMAN LEARNING

Our Summer Zman (season) of multi-week classes take place from Jun. 14-Jul. 21. | LEARN MORE AND REGISTER

Yeshiva Calendar ’21-’22

SUMMER ZMAN

June – July 2022

June 9th

Thu

New SVARA-nik Orientation (8:00-10:00 PM ET)

June 14th

Mon

Summer Zman Begins

July 21st

Thu

End of Summer Zman