Sign up now for the 2020 Beth El Beit Midrash in partnership with Project Zug and Hadar.
We are excited to announce that the Beth El Beit Midrash -- our "house of study" in partnership with Project Zug, a leading Jewish study organization -- will launch our fifth year of partnered study, or chavruta learning. The word zug means pair or couple, and since ancient times, Jews have met in dedicated pairs for discussion and study. Our Beth El Beit Midrash incorporates modern topics, appealing to all knowledge levels, and online study for a fun and stimulating learning experience.
Project Zug is led by a team of Israeli and American Jews, and the project is run by Mechon Hadar, an internationally recognized Jewish educational institution based in New York City. Through our Strategic Planning initiative, we are funding a free program for members, with a nominal cost of $36 for non-members.
Members can sign up as a pair, or ask to be paired with a partner who wants to study the same course. Study partners can be friends, family members, and fellow congregants. This is a wonderful opportunity to learn with your spouse, with distant friends, or for intergenerational learning, and we encourage our post-B'nai Mitzvah teens to study with a friend or family member. Participants need to have a computer with a good Internet connection so they can view the video lessons and download the discussion guides. You can study with your partner in person, or it can easily be done over the phone, or by Skype or FaceTime.
Each pair will pick one of the 28 Project Zug courses. There is a wide range of exciting courses on art, Bible, philosophy, Rabbinic literature, social justice, Jewish culture and history, and more. No knowledge of Hebrew is necessary; the course materials are all in English and Hebrew, so you can pick your preferred language.
We'll kick-off the Beit Midrash with a breakfast on Sunday, January 12 at 9:30am. Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, a world-renowned educator and the president and CEO of the Hadar Institute will join us to conduct a lesson on "The Mourner’s Kaddish– A New Interpretation" and model the process. After that, each pair will schedule its own study time for an 11-session course. We will have a mid-semester meet-up on March 10, and conclude with a siyyum/completion celebration on May 5. You do not have to be available on these dates in order to participate.
Before you begin, make sure to check out the courses that you want may want to sign up for. Visit https://www.projectzug.org/courses/list to view the full selection of courses.
The Mourner’s Kaddish – A New Interpretation
Join Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, the rosh yeshiva and CEO of the Hadar Institute, in a guided text study on January 12 at 9:30 am on the essence of the Kaddish, perhaps the most misunderstood prayer in Judaism. We will move on an interpretive journey that has implications for all prayers we say. Along the way we will encounter the power of the Kaddish, a poignant depiction of God’s relationship with us, and what people can offer the Divine.
