announcing: revolutionary reading group
sholem aleichem,
apologies for bothering your inbox sans drash, but two things:
if you are looking for hot etz hi takes on parshas tazria, metzora, or achrei-mos, i wrote a dvar on them last year, so am taking a slight hiatus (not sure what to do about kedoshim, but i'll figure that out)
i am super excited to announce the revolutionary reading group, details below, that i am co-facilitating with robin banerji. every other wednesday 7:30-9pm Eastern Time. i look forward to studying with some of you!
revolutionary reading group announcement!
Last month, the Trans Halakha Project from SVARA, the queer and trans Talmud yeshiva, released eleven glittering gems of brand-new knowledge into the world: ten teshuvot, practical papers on applying Jewish law to our lives, each written on a different facet of the trans experience, and Tefilat Trans, a pocket-sized prayerbook of Jewish blessings and rituals for moments of trans experience.
Their authors create “euphoric halakha”—not dysphoric halakha—by bringing their own experiences of transness to questions of transness as has never been done before in Jewish history.
But trans halakha is for everyone: as each one of us learns from these documents, we will discover more than we knew was possible about ourselves, our friends and neighbors, and about Judaism.
The New Synagogue Project is partnering with with Yeshiva Shel Maala, the Torah Studio, and Synagogues Rising to create a Revolutionary Reading Group to hold ourselves and each other accountable for learning the work of the Trans Halakha Project.
Every other week, chevrutas (study pairs) will learn and discuss a teshuva, and the following week we will all meet synchronously on Zoom to present the paper and its findings, then discuss our impressions of it. Of course, you don’t have to attend the synchronous meetings to follow the reading schedule—the learning happens all the same!
The first synchronous meeting is May 3, and registration is open now!