by Laynie Soloman, Associate Rosh Yeshiva When I started planning to have top surgery, I never wondered whether I could get top surgery according to halakha. While my life is guided by the yes’s and no’s of halakha in other realms, the question of permission in this case never crossed my mind. Instead, I wondered, […]

by Ayana Morse, Executive Director   About a year and a half ago, I was lucky enough to be at the graduation for our first cohort of Fellows in the Teaching Kollel. I had captured glimmers of how SVARA’s learning community touched people before that, but I was caught unawares by the sheer power of […]

by R’ Benay Lappe, Rosh Yeshiva   I want to tell you why I’m in the Talmud business.  And I want to tell you today because, perhaps like some of you, and in spite of the likely outcome of the election, I’m still feeling decidedly less joyful than I had hoped to feel.  Even though […]

by Maggid Jhos Singer, SVARA Fellow Rebbe Nachman of Breslov used to say, “Friends do not despair, for a difficult time has come upon us joy must fill the air. We must not lose our faith in living; we must not despair. Though a difficult time has come upon us, joy must fill the air.” […]

by Laynie Soloman, SVARA faculty I am re-learning how to feel good.  As joy and pain move through my life without ceremony, I—along with so many of y’all—am a scientist of my own experience, constantly learning what it takes to feel good. This week in our Daily Drop-in Mishnah Collective I was electrified by a […]

by Ayana Morse, Executive Director I have, over the past weeks and months, made an increasing number of minor mistakes, and contributed rambling, nonsensical ideas to any number of projects. One of the more recent examples of this was that I misspelled the subject line of a big marketing email. After sending out a correction, […]

by Laynie Soloman, SVARA Faculty & R’ Becky Silverstein, SVARA Fellow, and Board Chair We have heard from y’all time and time again that the most powerful, connected moments of learning happen when we are able to show up with our whole selves, and when we can see ourselves reflected in our teachers and comrades. […]

by Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari, Talmud Faculty This piece is an excerpt from R’ Ari Lev’s Yom Kippur sermon at Kol Tzedek Last week a grand jury in Louiseville, KY exonerated all three officers in the case of the murder of Breonna Tayler, and merely indicted Detective Brett Hankison for wanton endangerment, for the shots […]

by Laynie Soloman, SVARA Faculty In the bet midrash, in meetings, and in conversations with SVARA-niks and community members week after week, I hear a refrain: We are holding so much grief. But it is a stagnant and stuck grief. It is heavy in our bodies, lodged in our bones, and in our hearts. We […]

by Noah Westreich, SVARA Fellow I can conjure up many different memories that have to do with the High Holidays. I remember being a kid and choosing the overflow room to sit with my friends and pass the time during services, the grainy video playing on the rollaway television stand. I remember the 110-degree heat […]