Come Learn with us

Through out the years, our adult education classes (come learn with us),  we explore the torah and other aspects of jewish life. 

Our next set of classes will be in March 2020. This four-week block of adult education is called “Trans-formations: The multiple genders of the Talmud”. As our society explores new and varied concepts of gender and transgender identity, this four-week course will introduce key texts in Rabbinic literature – the Tosefta and the Talmud – which discuss intersex, gender-indeterminate and gender-nonconforming bodies and their halachic status. What space do our texts create for trans, non-binary and queer people today?

These March sessions will be lead by Rabbi Mark L. Solomon: Rabbi Solomon was born in Sydney, Australia and studied at the Lubavitcher Yeshivah Gedolah in Melbourne and Kfar Chabad in Israel. He came to Britain in 1988 to study at Jews’ College, London, the modern Orthodox seminary where he was ordained in 1991. Having left Orthodoxy and joined Liberal Judaism, Rabbi Solomon studied at Leo Baeck College, where he has taught since 1991, and is currently Senior Lecturer in Talmud, Rabbinics and Jewish philosophy. Rabbi Solomon is also an honorary rabbi of the Jewish Gay and Lesbian Group.

Previous classes included a 3-session Shabbat Song Sharing. This musical-educational-liturgical series covered the melodies we know and love to sing on Shabbat, as well as some lesser-known or new-to-us favourites. We explored the link between melodies and the meaning of their texts, and what the Torah of music can teach us about our Shabbat prayers.