by Laynie Soloman, Associate Rosh Yeshiva For me and Talmud, it was love at first sight. Like Yentl, I remember walking through a crowded room of learners that was loud and buzzing with a sense of organized chaos. I sat at the table, across from my chevruta, opened up the masechet that I had purchased […]

by Elaina Marshalek, SVARA Fellow & Director of Programs At SVARA, we know that we are players. That means it is our role to take the skills of the rabbis— their bold, creative, drash-filled tools—to interpret our text (and our life) toward a more just and liberatory world. And yet, all too often, when I […]

by Ayana Morse, Executive Director It’s not uncommon in meetings on Team SVARA for someone to say at some point, “There are no Talmud emergencies.” Usually, it’s in reference to shifting timelines for a project or to ease away from imagined urgency. It tends to bring about a good chuckle. But just as underneath that […]

a conversation with Scholar-in-Residence Devin Samuels & Associate Rosh Yeshiva Laynie Soloman This fall, SVARA welcomed Devin Samuels as our Scholar-in-Residence, who taught “Svara Off the Page: A Toolkit for Refining Our Guts.” The class utilized Devin’s expertise as a writer and creative to explore the concept of svara and encouraged participants to develop their […]

by R’ Bronwen Mullin, SVARA Faculty Who knew that reciting a baraita—one of the bits of text in the Talmud from the Tannaim, the Rabbis of the Mishnah—from memory could be so radically transformative. First off, it’s just a baraita—a teaching conceived by our rabbinic ancestors that didn’t even make it into the Mishnah. Second, […]

by Maggid Jhos Singer, SVARA Fellow בֶּן בַּג בַּג אוֹמֵר, הֲפֹךְ בָּהּ וַהֲפֹךְ בָּהּ, דְּכֹלָּא בָהּ. וּבָהּ תֶּחֱזֵי, וְסִיב וּבְלֵה בָהּ, וּמִנַּהּ לֹא תָזוּעַ, שֶׁאֵין לְךָ מִדָּה טוֹבָה הֵימֶנָּה  בֶּן הֵא הֵא אוֹמֵר, לְפוּם צַעֲרָא אַגְרָא This is one of my favorite Mishnaic sound bites. Ben Bag Bag, a slightly mysterious Talmudic character, says regarding […]

by R’ Benay Lappe, Rosh Yeshiva & Laynie Soloman, Associate Rosh Yeshiva Chanukah is one of our faves here at SVARA. And that’s, at least in part, because of the way the Rabbis so explicitly show us their work as they’re creating this newfangled holiday. They make sure we see, at every step, how they […]

by R’ Hayley Goldstein, SVARA Fellow   Sometimes, I have sleepless nights. Not because I am out partying (I wish) or because I’m up writing papers or studying Torah, but because my mind can’t settle, can’t allow my eyelids to be heavy, and my body to joyfully yield to the earth. It doesn’t happen too […]

by R’ Benay Lappe, Rosh Yeshiva I was born at the tail end of the generation that can tell you exactly where they were when they heard that Kennedy was shot. And there’s the generation that can tell you exactly where they were when they heard that a plane had flown into the World Trade […]

by Ren Finkel, Mishnah Collective & Emergent Programs Coordinator Mishnah Collective will be making a triumphant return to Mishnah Avot Chapter 6 in just a couple of weeks. This magical chapter of ancient wisdom is where the Mishnah Collective first began, an experiment hoping to bring a little light during the darkness of the first […]