by Laynie Soloman and Rabbi Mónica Gomery At SVARA we often say, “The Talmud  is never really talking about what it says it’s talking about.” We focus on the text as formative rather than normative—the tradition is here to shape us, not necessarily by what it says, but by how it says what it says.  […]

by Rabbi Benay Lappe, Ayana Morse, Rabbi Becky Silverstein, and Laynie Soloman …שַׁמַּאי אוֹמֵר עֲשֵׂה תוֹרָתְךָ קֶבַע אֱמֹר מְעַט וַעֲשֵׂה הַרְבֵּה Shammai used to say: Make your learning fixed. Speak little, do much… (Masechet Avot 1:15) Last Friday, SVARA’s Daily Mishnah Collective celebrated the completion (for now!) of our learning of Chapter 1 of Masechet […]

by Rabbi Mónica Gomery As I imagine many of you have, I’ve spent the week in alternating states of heartbreak, anger, and deep inspiration, as we live through a national uprising in support of the Movement for Black Lives. This past weekend, SVARA participated in Up All Night: Torah for Liberation and Revelation, a nation-wide […]

by Laynie Soloman  There is no feeling like being in a full bet midrash. In the bet midrash I hear and feel the low hum of folks studying around me, and time is punctuated by the sound of chevruta high-fives and dictionary pages flipping. Surrounded by fellow seekers, tables of books, and unending snacks, pouring […]

by Rabbi Mónica Gomery A couple of weeks ago, I attended a poetry reading called Shelter in Poems, hosted by the Academy of American Poets. About 15,000 people were in attendance over an online streaming platform, as 25 writers and public figures each read aloud a favorite poem that has accompanied them throughout this time […]

by Rabbi Benay Lappe in chevruta with Rabbi Mónica Gomery Each daf of Talmud presents us with a fantasy.  The fantasy is the record of an impossible intergenerational conversation across time and space, between queer folk (OK, ok, sages, but you know what I mean) who lived in different centuries from one another–some a millennium […]

by Maggid Jhos Singer, SVARA Fellow Fifteen years and four months ago, on an inside tip from a friend, I squiggled, crawled, climbed, and connived my way into a weeklong intensive on Rabbinic Literature at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. The friend told me the teacher was a lesbian rabbi and that she […]

by Rabbi Mónica Gomery On Wednesday morning I opened my front door, admittedly still wearing pajamas, with a rainbow alef-bet strip in hand. I was headed two doors down, to deliver the alef-bet strip to my neighbor’s front porch. Pulling open the door, I was startled and then delighted to find myself greeted by a […]

by Laynie Soloman For me, each day feels like an eternity. The daily movement through weekday mornings that begin like weekends that blend into night feels like a pocket of timelessness, and like swimming in the mundane. We are wandering but going nowhere, it feels like, as our ancestors must have felt before us, and […]

by Rabbi Benay Lappe & Laynie Soloman Passover’s over. Egypt is behind us. That first glimpse of liberation is exhilarating. You’re free! At least that’s the story we’re taught. But the journey to liberation can also be scary. Really scary. As every one of us knows, getting free isn’t a one-and-done. It never happens all […]