About the Class

Tractate Kiddushin is the locus of rabbinic conversation about halachic marriage, and also discusses gendered obligations in mitzvot – making it a rich source to use to explore what feminist Torah is and can be. In each meeting of this class, we will use one sugya from Tractate Kiddushin to dive into a major issue in feminist Torah. Topics will include metaphors of ownership for Torah; Jewish marriage; niddah; rabbinic and contemporary relationships to boundaries; disability; and more. This ninety-minute class will open with a brief introduction, and will then consist of havruta time followed by shiur/class. All sources will be available in translation, and the core texts for this class will primarily consist of Talmud and queer and feminist theory. We will lean into the nature of these texts as twisty, terse, and sometimes hard to parse; this is an opportunity to grow in relationship with Torah and with our own insights and reading abilities.

Your Teacher

Avigayil Halpern

Rabbi Avigayil Halpern is a writer and educator who is passionate about the Torah that emerges in the conversation between our own lives and traditional texts. Avigayil’s work focuses on queer and feminist Torah, and she is currently at work on a book about queer niddah. You can read her writing at avigayil.substack.com.

Avigayil was ordained by the Hadar Institute in 2023, and has taught Torah and built
community nationally and internationally, including at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the Drisha Institute, Hunter College Hillel, and Hillel Deutschland.

She is also trained as a Mikveh Guide through Rising Tide, and has completed a unit of hospital chaplaincy training at New York Presbyterian/Columbia. She has been a Scholar in Residence at the Hadasssah-Brandeis Institute and was recognized as one of the New York Jewish Week’s “36 Under 36” in 2021 and as a “Vatichtov: She Writes” Fellow in 2022, among other fellowships and awards.

Avigayil currently lives in Washington, DC, where she builds community as the founding rabbi of Based-In DC and teaches Torah to Jews of all ages at Adas Israel Congregation.

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Explorations in Feminist Torah: Tractate Keddushin

Meets on

Mondays at 5pm PT/8pm ET

Price

$180-360