SVARA-Style Learning

Let’s learn Talmud in the original language!

Learning in the style of SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva means a multi-week course where chevrutas (learner pairs) go deep into a sugya/text from the conversations our early Rabbis.

Going deep means that chevrutas work to break down each word of our passage by going on journeys through dictionaries and their own unique wisdom. Once chevrutas have prepared the text, we all come together to make learner-led communal translation of the text, raising questions and deepening our understanding of the words, their immediate context, broader implications, and what we want to do about them! As we move through the course learners practice internalizing the text for a recitation, reviving the Oral Tradition of the Talmud. In order to engage with SVARA-style learning, participants will need to know their alef-bet and vowels.

On the final week, we will conclude with a Sugya-Show-and-Tell, where everyone is invited to share a creative interpretation of their learning, ranging from visual art to group meditation to recipe! (The Sugya-Show-and-Tell is my favourite part!)

I have studied for years in SVARA’s Teaching Kollel to develop and practice the skills to teach in their empowering and revelatory method. It would be an honour and a joy to share it with your community.

Let’s talk about SVARA-style Learning!

Past SVARA-Style Courses

“A Nightmare on Chelm Street” with Shel Maala
Our sages were fascinated with dreams and dream interpretation, claiming that “Dreams are 1/60th of Prophecy.” In this course we explored their guidance on how to respond when one has a deeply troubling dream – by gathering community and engaging in radical reframing! (Berakhot 55b, five sessions)

“Planting Cucumbers By Magic: or, How to Get Away with Jewish Witchcraft” with Shel Maala
Despite fierce prohibitions in Deuteronomy, the Talmud is full of Rabbis doing magic. From amulets to necromancy, magic was so important to the Rabbis that one had to be accomplished in sorcery to serve on the Sanhedrin court. Here we explored an ancient loophole for tapping into our Queer Jewish Magic! (Sanhedrin 67a & 68a, four sessions)

UPCOMING!! REGISTER NOW! “The Sheydy Bunch: A Halloween Talmud Series on Amulets, Song & the Demons Next Door” with Shel Maala
This is the situation: There is a service-berry tree not far away from the city in which you live. In the tree, there are no less than sixty demons. Would you be able to write an effective amulet to protect your people, or will the demons taunt you with their songs and send you crying back home? (Pesachim 111b, five sessions)

“Entrances to Talmud: Dozing Off/Staggeringly Gay” with Ratzon: Center for Healing and Resistance
In order to get my community acquainted with Talmud, its history, genres, goals, and potentials, we spent two weeks purely in translation, comparing a set of curious sugyot (sections of Talmud) where the sages define “Dozing Off.”
Once we we had met the tradition, we spent a week learning how to learn in the SVARA Method.
All this prepared us to learn a fabulous text about how Rabbis Hisda and Sheshet’s lips and whole bodies would tremble in awe of each other’s wisdom. (Eruvin 67a, six sessions)

“DEMONS – They’re Just Like Us!” with Ratzon: Center for Healing and Resistance
Once my community was familiar with this style of learning, we were ready to get into the Talmud Demons! Here we pushed and pulled at a key text which compares demons, angels, humans, and animals, discovering Jewish cosmology and questioning what it means to be like demons. (Chagigah 16a, four sessions)

A Daf (Page) of Talmud, Sanhedrin 67a, marked up with the text breakdown from my course “Planting Cucumbers by Magic” with Shel Maala.