Build Your Own Beit Midrash Kickoff | Studying in Chevruta (Online)

Experience relationship-building learning on your own schedule. Choose what you’d like to study from a selection of top-notch self-guided courses. We’ll help match you with a chevruta (study partner), kick off our learning together, and then support you along the way as you learn when and where you’d like: over Zoom, at a coffee shop, after kids’ bedtimes; whatever you and your chevruta decide.

Register by November 11th for semester 1 so that we can match you with a learning partner, and then join us to launch your learning together with a special session on how to study in chevruta. After that, you’ll receive materials weekly or bi-monthly to work on with your chevruta.

During semester 1, there are three courses:

Whole and Broken Tablets: Aging in Rabbinic Literature (4 sessions)

In this four-session course, we’ll study passages from Tanakh, Talmud, and classical Midrash about old age. Beyond the general reverence for the elderly that the Rabbis demanded, what did they think about the actual experience of aging? What are its gifts and challenges? We will consider the implications of the Rabbis’ thinking about old age both from the perspective of those aging, and from those who love and care for them.

Out of the Ruins: Jewish Wisdom on Resilience (4 sessions)

The past year has brought with it tremendous loss and uncertainty. Throughout the ages, the Jewish people have experienced significant downfalls and periods of great adversity from the flood that nearly destroyed the world to the destruction of the Temple to the Holocaust, an unprecedented time of darkness and despair. And, yet each time, the Jewish people drew on wellsprings of resilience to not only continue on but to continue forward, rebuilding for the next generation.

The Triumph of Life (10 sessions)

The arc of history runs from primordial creation to ultimate redemption—and the Torah’s goal is to guide us through the time in between. What is the purpose of creation? What does God require of us in order to create the final perfected world? What wisdom is there in the Jewish tradition that might direct our steps to get there? Join one of the most influential and sophisticated Jewish thinkers of the 20th century and beyond, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, on a journey with your chevruta to think about these questions.

Through passages from traditional Jewish texts and excerpts from Rabbi Greenberg’s recently published book, The Triumph of Life, we will explore the purpose of creation, the purpose of Torah, and the purpose of our own selves—as individuals and as a people—in bringing God’s vision to life.

Registration: This event is available online. Please click the appropriate purple bar above to register.

Sponsored by the Beth Elohim Institute for Transformation (BEIT), which offers an integrated, multifaceted approach to exploring and applying Jewish teachings and tradition to our contemporary daily lives by bringing together learning, spiritual practice, caring, and action all under one roof.