New SVARA courses will be posted here as they are offered. Please contact us to discuss bringing a SVARA course to your city.

Past courses offered by SVARA

ABOUT SVARA:

SVARA is a yeshiva where serious Jewish text study happens in an open atmosphere, and includes around the table everyone who wants to learn. SVARA strives to make Jewish texts accessible to those historically excluded from the richness of traditional text learning. It seeks the participation of learners of diverse religious and spiritual backgrounds, of all sexes, sexual orientations, gender expressions and identities, ethnic heritage, racial experience, skin color, class background, and religious observance, in order to create an interpretive community which will bring to the table the broadest possible picture of life, with the ultimate goal of restoring Judaism to its radical roots so that it might once again be a voice of courageous moral conscience in the world and reflect the truest possible vision of what it means to be a fully human, human being. To this end, SVARA seeks to impart the text skills and halachic (Jewish legal) expertise necessary to those who would enrich, push, and contribute to the evolving Jewish tradition—and who seek to be pushed, challenged, and enriched by it. svara is a 2,000-year-old Jewish concept invented by the Rabbis of the Talmud, to refer to one’s internal ethical impulse informed by Jewish learning. Please see our website for more information: www.svara.org.

Rabbi Benay Lappe, Executive Director and Rosh Yeshiva of SVARA, was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1997, and holds three additional advanced degrees, in teaching and rabbinics. An innovator in combining Jewish text study and queer theory, Rabbi Lappe founded the Gay & Lesbian Lehrhaus Judaica in New York and the Queer Jewish Think Tank in Los Angeles, both of which continue to thrive. Rabbi Lappe currently serves as Professor of Talmud at the Hebrew Seminary of the Deaf, in Chicago, Visiting Professor of Talmud at the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union, in Berkeley, Resident Rabbinic Scholar at the Aitz Hayim Center for Jewish Living, in Chicago, and is an Associate at New York’s CLAL—The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.