Build Your Own Beit Midrash Semester 2 Kickoff (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.

4-session classes (study guides sent every other week)

The Balancing Act: Being a Jewish Parent | This 4-session course uses text-study as a mode to explore the multiple demands and values that are constantly tugging at Jewish parents. What from your own parent(s) are you trying to pass on to your kids? When should you prioritize yourself over your kids? What does it mean to raise a child as Jewish?

Theology and Ethics After the Holocaust | The Holocaust was more than the greatest catastrophe in Jewish history. It is a watershed in human civilization. The event challenges the credibility of religions, in particular Judaism and Christianity, confronts the fundamental assumptions and self-understanding of modern civilization, and demands revisions in ethical norms and behaviors. One of the world’s leading Holocaust theologians, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, in decades of teaching and writing, has taken up the challenges of this conversation head-on. As he concludes, the Holocaust is far too big an event to assimilate into any prior version of Jewish theology. It requires new answers and new paradigms. In this course, explore Greenberg’s revolutionary framework of covenant and what he sees as the core vision of Judaism in the modern world in order to begin thinking about these huge, terrifying, and challenging themes.

10-session class (study guides sent weekly)

A Food Tour of the Talmud | Food is a powerful force at the center of ritual, community, social justice, and ethics. This class will explore all of these aspects of food by studying passages on food found across the Talmud. How can the act of eating become a practice of gratitude? Who should receive food as charity, and how much? What rights do field-workers have? Jumping into the lively debate of Talmud will pave the way for rich discussion to affirm, challenge and transform our own approaches to food.

Semester 2 Dates

• March 10: Deadline to register for Semester 2
• March 16, 7:30 pm: Full group gathering on zoom, intro to chevruta study
• March 24–May 26: Study on your own schedule with your chevruta
• June 2: Siyyum (conclusion) for all adult learning programs this year

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.