SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva

SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva Empowering q***r and trans people to expand Torah and tradition through the spiritual practice of Talmud study. www.svara.org

In this week's ✨Hot Off the Shtender,✨ SVARA Fellow Rabbi Julia Spiegel reflects on the sacred slipperiness of time. Thi...
06/05/2026

In this week's ✨Hot Off the Shtender,✨ SVARA Fellow Rabbi Julia Spiegel reflects on the sacred slipperiness of time. This beautiful piece offers gratitude, even amidst these ever-changing seasons, for the many ways our tradition helps us keep (and lose) track of time. 📖💜⏳

✨HOTS: https://svara.org/only-for-now/

ID: Julia is standing outdoors on a sunny day, with the faint haze of green and yellow trees behind her. Julia is wearing a black button-down, black pants, and dark-framed glasses, smiling cheerfully toward the camera. Text from Julia's HOTS piece is situated to the left of his photograph, and reads, "As painful and unfair as time can be, it was in wisdom and understanding that G-d knew the seasons had to change." Beneath the text is a byline that reads, "Rabbi Julia Spiegel, SVARA Fellow".

In this week's ✨Hot Off the Shtender,✨ SVARA Fellow Rabbi Maggid Jhos Singer chronicles the food (as well as the physica...
05/29/2026

In this week's ✨Hot Off the Shtender,✨ SVARA Fellow Rabbi Maggid Jhos Singer chronicles the food (as well as the physical and spiritual gardens) of our tradition. With the warmth, curiosity, and depth that have made Jhos such a beloved teacher and learner in our community, this piece invites us to consider the sacred work of feeding our minds, bodies, and souls with whatever is growing around us. 🌱📖💚

✨HOTS: https://svara.org/cookbook/

ID: Jhos is leaning on a windowsill in the bet midrash, wearing glasses and a checkered shirt. He is reading from a Talmud dictionary, and he wears a toolbelt holding dictionaries and notebooks. Text from his HOTS piece is situated to the left of his photograph, and reads, "Long before we were poring over words, we were discovering ways to turn the gifts of the earth into our bodies." Beneath the text is a byline that reads, "Rabbi Maggid Jhos Singer, SVARA Fellow". See less

Our SVARA Siyyum is next week—a virtual gathering to celebrate a year of liberatory learning in our Open Bet Midrash and...
05/27/2026

Our SVARA Siyyum is next week—a virtual gathering to celebrate a year of liberatory learning in our Open Bet Midrash and the first year of the Gemirna Kollel!

On June 1, we’ll share some of the gorgeous insights and questions that have taken shape across our learning community this past year. This is a moment to witness what has emerged in the SVARA bet midrash and catch a glimpse of what’s coming next. Everyone is welcome to attend this free event!

✨ SIYYUM: https://tinyurl.com/svarasiyyum26

ID: A photograph of students and teachers in the SVARA bet midrash, many of whom have their arms raised above their heads. Text reads, "Come learn what we've learned. Join us for a SVARA siyyum! June 1 at 7:30 pm ET.

We're dreaming of a covenant beyond obedience. 🌄✨Dive into our brand new Shavuot reader, which is centered around an ext...
05/19/2026

We're dreaming of a covenant beyond obedience. 🌄✨

Dive into our brand new Shavuot reader, which is centered around an extraordinary essay by Chava Shapiro, a current student in SVARA's Gemirna Kollel. Their beautiful piece weaves rabbinic text, contemporary thought, anarchist imagination, and the wisdom of Chava's own chevrutas and teachers (including Laynie Soloman, Rabbi Lauren Tuchman, and Binya Kóatz) into a vibrant dialogue of inquiry. We've also included a series of prompts at the end of the reader as a way to carry your learning a little bit further—to deepen your own encounter with the piece and continue being in conversation with our tradition. Happy learning!

✨SHAVUOT READER: https://svara.org/library

ID: The cover of the Shavuot reader is a photograph of someone learning in the SVARA bet midrash, holding a reference book in their hands. They are wearing a blue shirt and their arms are covered in tattoos. Gray blue text above the photo reads, “Crafting the Covenant: A SVARA Reader for Shavuot.”)

🌿📖 Apply to Q***r Talmud Camp by May 15!Whether you’re opening a volume of Talmud for the very first time or returning w...
05/08/2026

🌿📖 Apply to Q***r Talmud Camp by May 15!

Whether you’re opening a volume of Talmud for the very first time or returning with years of learning behind you, Q***r Talmud Camp invites you to spend five days building skills in joyful, rigorous, and supportive q***r community. 🌿✨💜 Plus, in between our time in the bet midrash, SVARA's founder and Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Benay Lappe will lead a series of hands-on leather working workshops where you’ll get to rebind your very own Jastrow dictionary in leather. Apply today!

✨QTC:https://svara.org/qtc

ID: A photograph of a leatherworking project to bind a Jastrow dictionary, which depicts a large sheet of leather laid out across a crafting grid and someone's hands holding a ruler an leather knife. Text reads, "Come for the Talmud, stay for the leather." The SVARA logo is placed in the upper right-hand corner.

You’re invited to a SVARA Siyyum—a virtual gathering to celebrate a year of liberatory learning in our Open Bet Midrash ...
05/04/2026

You’re invited to a SVARA Siyyum—a virtual gathering to celebrate a year of liberatory learning in our Open Bet Midrash and the first year of the Gemirna Kollel.

On June 1, we’ll share insights and questions that have taken shape across our learning community. This is a moment to witness what has emerged in the SVARA bet midrash and catch a glimpse of what’s coming next. All are welcome to attend this free event. Join us!

✨ SIYYUM: https://tinyurl.com/svarasiyyum26

ID: A photograph of students and teachers in the SVARA bet midrash, many of whom have their arms raised above their heads. Text reads, "Come learn what we've learned. Join us for a SVARA siyyum! June 1 at 7:30 pm ET."

Don't miss this beautifully metaphysical torah from SVARA Faculty Fellow Kendra Watkins, who weaves together an eloquent...
04/17/2026

Don't miss this beautifully metaphysical torah from SVARA Faculty Fellow Kendra Watkins, who weaves together an eloquent case for Talmud as a liberatory tool, as long as we allow it to move in all directions at once. Kendra's writing sits in conversation with the work of Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a cosmologist and particle physicist whose recent book, "The Edge of Space-Time," centers quantum physics and Black feminist thought in equal measure. We invite you to travel forwards, backwards, and all-ways through time and space as you carry this piece into shabbes.

✨HOTS: https://svara.org/lets-boogie

ID: Kendra is smiling widely as they face the camera. They are leaning against a warm yellow cinderblock wall, wearing a sweater beneath a denim layer. Text from their Hot Off the Shtender piece sits to the left of the image and reads, "The desire to learn more about the world and myself in it, through Torah, reveals both the joys and challenges of being alive in this moment." There is a byline beneath it that reads "Kendra Watkins, Faculty Fellow". The SVARA logo sits in the bottom right corner and reads, "SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva."

🌱📖☀️ Come to camp and find yourself in our tradition. 🌻🌾🍄Q***r Talmud Camp (QTC) is SVARA’s flagship summer program: a f...
04/17/2026

🌱📖☀️ Come to camp and find yourself in our tradition. 🌻🌾🍄

Q***r Talmud Camp (QTC) is SVARA’s flagship summer program: a five-day, in-person retreat for folks to engage deeply with the spiritual practice of Talmud study. From June 28 through July 2, participants engage in rigorous, accessible, yeshiva-style learning grounded in the belief that our tradition needs the insight of those on the margins. Apply today!

✨QUEER TALMUD CAMP: https://svara.org/qtc/

ID: A joyful image of two learners arriving to Q***r Talmud Camp, being greeted by a faculty member who smiles back at them.

We hope you'll bring a bit of our Pesach Reader to your tables tonight. 🌿 This new 36-page collection from SVARA traces ...
04/01/2026

We hope you'll bring a bit of our Pesach Reader to your tables tonight. 🌿 This new 36-page collection from SVARA traces the spiraling journeys we take across a lifetime, inviting us to recall being children, to remember things that have not yet happened, and to meet the future as something already in formation.

Explore powerful writings from SVARA teachers and students alike: Emet / Ari. L Monts, Rabbi Becky Silverstein, Rabbi Benay Lappe, Binya Kóatz, Chava Shapiro, and Rabbi Lauren Tuchman. A digital booklet and a screen-reader version are now available in the SVARA library.

✨PESACH READER: https://svara.org/library

ID: The cover page of SVARA's Pesach Reader, which bears green text over an image of the crest of a tree-covered hilltop. The text reads, "We Have Been Here Before: A SVARA Reader for Pesach."

As Pesach approaches, we invite you to dig into a truly gorgeous piece by SVARA Fellow Binya Kóatz, which illuminates th...
03/31/2026

As Pesach approaches, we invite you to dig into a truly gorgeous piece by SVARA Fellow Binya Kóatz, which illuminates the journey from Purim through Shavuot with a close reading of how, where, and why alcohol appears in ritual. In her most recent ✨Hot Off the Shtender,✨ Binya explores libation in our most sacred celebrations and urges us to let love fill our cups more than anything else.

✨HOTS: https://svara.org/libation-and-liberation/

ID: Binya is smiling with her eyes closed as her curly brown hair drapes down across her face. She is wearing a flowing scarf and a sleeveless top. Text from her HOTS piece reads, "Wine, like everything else in our world, can serve to heal or hurt, for life or for death." A byline reads, "Binya Kóatz, SVARA Fellow." The SVARA logo is placed in the bottom-right corner.

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