Category Archives: Ruach HaYam

Megillat Esther – Modes of Resistance and Ridicule (Feb 20, 2020)

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Ruach HaYam teaching presented by Penina Weinberg at Congregation Eitz Chayim, 136 Magazine Street, Cambridge, MA – 6:45pm – 9:30pm.
[Images: Esther in Persian attire proudly sitting on throne, Mordechai in front writing, Ahasuerus behind, by Arthur Szyk, 1950. Queen Vashti refusing to appear before Ahasuerus. 15th century manuscript illumination]
(Scroll to end for logistics)

The book of Esther has it all: heroic women, man of valor, ridicule of authority, harsh treatment of our enemies, eunuchs serving as messengers, advisors, guards, assassins, and soldiers. See Peter Toscano https://petersontoscano.com/eunuch-inclusive-esther-queer-theology-101/  (no longer available here)
But no name of God appears. As we study, we will discover moments of pride, times of laughter, and dismay at violence. And wonder at the purpose of the tale. We will share our collective wisdom on this well-known story as we head into Purim.

Penina Weinberg is an independent Hebrew bible scholar whose study and teaching focus on the intersection of power, politics and gender in the Hebrew Bible. She has run workshops for Nehirim and Keshet and has been teaching Hebrew bible for 10 years. She has written in Tikkun and HBI blog, and is the leader and founder of Ruach HaYam.

** Logistics**
Study starts promptly at 7:15 pm. We open the doors at 6:45 for schmoozing. Feel free to bring your own veggie snack for the early part. A parking consideration is in effect for the three blocks around EC during all regularly scheduled events. It is a good idea to put a note in the windshield that you are attending an event at EC.  If you would like a copy of parking permit, go here   Permit for this event will be found there a couple weeks before event.
Accessibility information: all gender/accessible bathrooms, entry ramp.

*** Ruach HaYam https://www.facebook.com/groups/Ruach.HaYam/ study sessions provide a queer Jewish look at text, and are welcoming to LGBTQ+ and allies, to any learning or faith background, to all bodies, and friendly to beginners***

Exodus: non-binary identity and living (or not) one’s destiny (Jan 16, 2020)

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Ruach HaYam teaching presented by Penina Weinberg at Congregation Eitz Chayim, 136 Magazine Street, Cambridge, MA – 6:45pm – 9:30pm.
[Miriam dancing at the crossing of the Red Sea. Chludov Psalter. 9th century.]
(Scroll to end for logistics)
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Join us as we begin the book of Exodus, for a study of Shemot, both Torah portion and book. We will see how binary labels miss the complexity of life. Moses is Israelite, Egyptian, Midianite. A killer and a prophet who fights his destiny. The midwives are Israelite and Egyptian. Israelite slaves have almost lost their identities. Ziporah is magician, nemesis, finger of God.

We will also look at how the daughters, like Miriam, are saved alive and save the day. The large arc of the exodus journey, from beginning to end, is energized by 17 women, Shifrah, Puah, Miriam, Jocheved, Pharaoh’s daughter, Zipporah and 6 sisters plus 5 daughters of Zelophehad, Mahlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. Yet the stupid Pharoh will save the daughters alive.

Perhaps we will take a clue from Joy Ladin who writes, in her book, The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective:

“God knows what transgender people know: the binaries that make identities seem clear and simple, easy to express and enforce, are, in practice, impossible to maintain, because they do not and cannot fit the complexity of human lives and human communities… [We live in] a world in which, as the plagues and miracles of the Exodus remind us, everything we think we know can change in an instant… in a world in which the distinction between who is ‘us’ and who is ‘them’ can be a matter of life and death.”

Penina Weinberg is an independent Hebrew bible scholar whose study and teaching focus on the intersection of power, politics and gender in the Hebrew Bible. She has run workshops for Nehirim and Keshet and has been teaching Hebrew bible for 10 years. She has written in Tikkun and HBI blog, and is the leader and founder of Ruach HaYam.

** Logistics**
Study starts promptly at 7:15 pm. We open the doors at 6:45 for schmoozing. Feel free to bring your own veggie snack for the early part. A parking consideration is in effect for the three blocks around EC during all regularly scheduled events. It is a good idea to put a note in the windshield that you are attending an event at EC.  If you would like a copy of parking permit, go here   Permit for this event will be found there a couple weeks before event.
Accessibility information: all gender/accessible bathrooms, entry ramp.

*** Ruach HaYam study sessions provide a queer Jewish look at text, and are welcoming to LGBTQ+ and allies, to any learning or faith background, to all bodies, and friendly to beginners***

Ruach HaYam Shabbat Retreat November 16, 2019

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Ruach HaYam, in partnership with Congregation Am Tikva, invites you to our seventh annual full day Shabbat retreat for LGBTQ+ Jews and friends and family.

November 16, 2019, from 9:30am to 7:30pm at Congregation Eitz Chayim, 136 Magazine Street, Cambridge, MA 02139.

PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED PLEASE REGISTER HERE

Eitz Chayim is 15 minutes walk from Central Square.  There will be a parking consideration in effect so that you may park within a couple blocks of the synagogue.   Eitz Chayim has a ramp entry and accessible and all gender bathrooms.

Refresh your spirit and make new friends in this fabulous day of egalitarian davening, creative and thoughtful workshops,and delicious kosher food!

Ruach HaYam welcomes queer Jews, friends, allies, family, and interfaith connections . We worship without a mechitza, with the music of our voices only, and with our own siddur. Our retreats are warm, meaningful, collaborative, lead to deepening of friendships, and are simply fabulous. 

Schedule for RetreatSee below for biographies

Services
9:30 am to Noon.   Service Leader Marvin Kabakoff.  Darshan Dev Singer
Lunch  Noon to 1:30 pm
Workshops
1:45 to 3:00 –  Penina Weinberg Radical Hospitality – Queerly Imperfect –  Angles on Angels.  We’ll examine the parsha, Vayera, in particular Gen 18 and 19, with a queer eye.  We’ll look first at the angels’ visit to Abraham and Sarah, and then their visit to Sodom.  What is the sin of Sodom, really?  Radical inhospitality.  Sounds good.  But there is something not quite right.  The women don’t do so well, from Sarah, to Lot’s daughters, to his wife.  A queer perspective tells us to view the text from multiple angles, or angels, to “turn it and turn it.”  So we will.
3:15 to 3:45 – Time for a 7th inning stretch!  Walk or exercise!
4:00 to 5:15 – Marvin Kabakoff.  Queer Jews of Boston: LGBTQ Rights and Queer Genealogy.  A Brief History of the LGBTQ Movement, focusing on queer Jews in Boston, the organizations they created for themselves, and their important role in LGBTQ activism in Massachusetts. Marvin will invite us to explore who our forebears are, and why Jews, queer and not, seem to play an outsize role in progressive movements, in this case the movement for LGBTQ rights.
Closing
5:30 – Havdalah
Following Havdalah – Meal/Melave Malka

Workshop and other Leaders

Penina Weinberg, Retreat Director is an independent biblical scholar and the founder of Ruach HaYam. Penina is President Emerita of Congregation Eitz Chayim in Cambridge, MA, where she is a frequent lay leader.  Her studying and teaching focus a queer lens on issues of gender, power, and identity in the Hebrew Bible. Penina teaches in Boston area synagogues, and has led many workshops for Nehirim and Keshet.  This is her seventh year as Ruach HaYam retreat director.
Marvin Kabakoff, Service and Workshop Leader, graduated from Brandeis and received a Ph.D. in history from Washington University-St. Louis. He is recently retired as an archivist with the National Archives and Records Administration, and is a board member of the History Project, Boston’s LGBTQ archives. Marvin attended a community Hebrew school and Hebrew High School in New Haven, and has been a long-time service leader at Am Tikva.
Our Partner Organization
Congregation Am Tikva, since 1976, has been providing a safe and welcoming space for GLBT Jews in the Boston area to pray together and to socialize. It created its own gender-neutral prayerbooks and customs for Friday evening services, the high holidays, and special events, such as the Erev Pride Liberation Seder. Am Tikva is a mixture of genders and sexualities who come from a variety of Jewish backgrounds. The services reflect that variety. Am Tikva offers two Friday evening services a month, one more contemporary and one more traditional, as well as High Holiday services and celebrations of other queer and Jewish holidays

Image: Abraham and the Three Angels.   Marc Chagall

 

 

Judith – Warrior, Priestess, Savior, Femme Fatale? (Aug 22, Sept 19, 2019)

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Ruach HaYam teaching presented by Penina Weinberg at Congregation Eitz Chayim, 136 Magazine Street, Cambridge, MA – 6:45pm.  Part one: Aug 22.   Part two: Sept 19, 2019.

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(Scroll to end for logistics)
[Artwork Judith before Holofernes, Hamburg Miscellany, Meinz (?), ca. 1428–1434. Hamburg, Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Hebr. 37, fol. 80v, detail (© Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek, Hamburg).

Everyone has heard of Judith. Isn’t she the woman who separated Holofernes from his head? And something or other about Hanukkah? Join us at Ruach HaYam *** (a queer Havurah based in Cambridge, MA) for a two session study of the book of Judith. Each class will be different – come to one or both as your time permits.

First encountered in a scroll that did not enter the Hebrew Bible, but became very important in Christianity, Judith does not become a Jewish heroine, or appear in rabbinic sources, until the middle ages, 1,000 years later, when Megillat Yehudit (the “Scroll of Judith”) and other midrashim in Hebrew surface. The midrashim draw fascinating parallels between Judith and Deborah, Jael, Esther, Ruth, David and many others. And of course tie Judith into Hanukkah.

Judith is a woman who has been called warrior, priestess, feminist icon, slave of the patriarchy, icon of piety and celibacy, seductress, femme fatale, independent, wise, androgynous. Indeed Judith may be the woman of the bible/Jewish tradition who has had the most contradictory reception. Judith is a fascinating study in herself, as well as a good lesson on how we read our own values into the text.

We will look at the deutero-canonical Book of Judith authored in antiquity in Greek, as well as Megillat Yehudit written in Hebrew sometime before 1402 CE. There are many online sources for self study.

Penina Weinberg is an independent Hebrew bible scholar whose study and teaching focus on the intersection of power, politics and gender in the Hebrew Bible. She has run workshops for Nehirim and Keshet and has been teaching Hebrew bible for 10 years. She has written in Tikkun and HBI blog, and is the leader and founder of Ruach HaYam.

** Logistics**
Study starts promptly at 7:15 pm. We open the doors at 6:45 for schmoozing. Feel free to bring your own veggie snack for the early part. A parking consideration is in effect for the three blocks around EC during all regularly scheduled events. It is a good idea to put a note in the windshield that you are attending an event at EC.
Accessibility information: all gender/accessible bathrooms, entry ramp.

*** Ruach HaYam study sessions provide a queer Jewish look at text, and are welcoming to any queers and allies, to any learning or faith background, to all bodies, and friendly to beginners.***

Navigating the Harsh Passages of Torah (July 18, 2019)

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Ruach HaYam teaching presented by Penina Weinberg at Congregation Eitz Chayim, 136 Magazine Street, Cambridge, MA – July 18, 2019. 6:45pm.

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(Scroll to end for logistics)
[Banner John Martin, The Deluge, 1834. At Yale Center for British Art.]

In this class with Ruach HaYam *** (a queer Havurah based in Cambridge, MA) we will wrestle with finding meaning in some of the harsh passages of Torah. All of us know of such passages, which shock and discomfort us in their violence and inhumanity. As queer readers of the Hebrew Bible, how do we understand them? And in struggling to understand, can we illuminate the harsh passages of our own lives? Our reference points will be the teachings of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Rabbi Victor Reinstein (at Nehar Shalom in Jamaica Plain), and Judith Plaskow. As we read them, we will consider how we react to their teachings.

Rabbi Reinstein writes: “On the surface of Torah there is often violence and strife, as in life. Sometimes on the surface itself, shimmering as a crystal fount, and sometimes beneath the surface, there is a river of peace that runs through Torah into whose flow we enter by engaging and wrestling with what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel calls the “‘harsh passages.'”

Rabbi Heschel writes “In analyzing this extremely difficult problem, we must first of all keep in mind that the standards by which those passages are criticized are impressed upon us by the Bible, which is the main factor in ennobling our conscience and in endowing us with the sensitivity that rebels against all cruelty.
We must, furthermore, realize that the harsh passages in the Bible are only contained in describing actions which were taken at particular moments and stand in sharp contrast with the compassion, justice and wisdom of the laws that were legislated for all times.” [God in Search of Man : A Philosophy of Judaism]

Judith Plascow writes: “[I]f in theory, it is entirely fitting to read about sexuality on Yom Kippur, the actual content of Leviticus 18 is deeply disturbing… [C]hanting it as sacred text colludes in promoting its values. In this situation, the question becomes not so much whether to read or not to read, but how to read, interpret, and appropriate the text in ways that are transformative.” [Beginning Anew: A Woman’s Companion to the High Holy Days]

For a personal commentary, read my post

Penina Weinberg is an independent Hebrew bible scholar whose study and teaching focus on the intersection of power, politics and gender in the Hebrew Bible. She has run workshops for Nehirim and Keshet and has been teaching Hebrew bible for 10 years. She has written in Tikkun and HBI blog, and is the leader and founder of Ruach HaYam.

** Logistics**
Study starts promptly at 7:15 pm. We open the doors at 6:45 for schmoozing. Feel free to bring your own veggie snack for the early part. A parking consideration is in effect for the three blocks around EC during all regularly scheduled events. It is a good idea to put a note in the windshield that you are attending an event at EC.
Accessibility information: all gender/accessible bathrooms, entry ramp.

*** Ruach HaYam study sessions provide a queer Jewish look at text, and are welcoming to any queers and allies, to any learning or faith background, to all bodies, and friendly to beginners.***

Trans Experience in Hebrew Bible – from Joy Ladin’s Book (May 23, 2019)

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Ruach HaYam Teaching presented by Penina Weinberg at Congregation Eitz Chayim, 136 Magazine Street, Cambridge, MA – May 23, 2019. 6:45pm. (Scroll to end for logistics)

Join us at Ruach HaYam, an independent queer havurah, for a discussion about Joy Ladin’s book, The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective. In her book, Joy writes that “The covenant with Abraham is founded on Abraham, Sarah, and Jacob’s embrace of trans experience: their willingness to live outside the gender roles they were born to and become the kinds of people they were not supposed to be. By portraying trans experience as the foundation for covenant with Abraham, the Torah plants God’s recognition that people do not have to be what binary gender says we are at the heart of the Abrahamic religious tradition.”

This is not a presentation by the author, but will be a conversation led by Penina Weinberg, who has attended many of Joy’s readings. We will read mostly from Chapter 2 of Joy’s book, and look at the Torah texts to which she refers. How might Joy’s theology help to heal the divide between religious and LGBTQ communities? How does her definition of “trans experience” apply to ourselves? If you have an opportunity to obtain The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective before our meeting, please do so, but it’s not required.

Banner image: Baruch Nachson (contemporary Israeli artist), Avraham Welcoming the Three Angels (acrylic on canvas). Abraham and Sarah preparing food for the angels, accompanied by barn animals and rider on horseback.

Penina Weinberg is an independent Hebrew bible scholar whose study and teaching focus on the intersection of power, politics and gender in the Hebrew Bible. She has run workshops for Nehirim and Keshet and has been teaching Hebrew bible for 10 years. She has written in Tikkun and HBI blog, and is the leader and founder of Ruach HaYam.

** Logistics**
Study starts promptly at 7:15 pm. We open the doors at 6:45 for schmoozing. Feel free to bring your own veggie snack for the early part. A parking consideration is in effect for the three blocks around EC during all regularly scheduled events. It is a good idea to put a note in the windshield that you are attending an event at EC.   You will find a note here if you wish to print one out.
Accessibility information: all gender/accessible bathrooms, entry ramp.

Ruach HaYam study sessions provide a queer Jewish look at text, but are welcoming to any learning or faith background, to all bodies, and friendly to beginners.

Joy Ladin: Soul of the Stranger – Speech of Shekhinah (April 21, 2019)

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Let us know on RSVP if you’d like a ride from Boston area.

RSVP

Passover second day afternoon conversation with author Joy Ladin. A collaborative presentation by Ruach HaYam, Beit Ahavah Reform Synagogue of Greater Northampton and the Queer Torah Havurah.

2:30 pm to 4:30 pm. 130 Pine St, Florence, MA.
Accessibility information: all gender/accessible bathrooms, entry ramp. Parking on site and in lot next door.

Joy will discuss her newest book The Soul of a Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective, and treat us to readings from her as yet unpublished poetry on the speech of the Shekhinah. This will be a chance to hear Joy read and to engage her in conversation with our own thoughts and hearts. Kosher for Passover refreshments will follow, and an opportunity to share Joy’s books.

Joy describes her book as “an effort to heal the divide between traditional religious communities and the LGBTQ people who are often seen as a threat to religious traditions…[particularly important] in a time when LGBTQ rights are increasingly under attack in the name of “‘religious freedom.’” One way this works is that “The Torah speaks to transgender lives [and] transgender perspectives illuminate the Torah.” We will ask Joy to tell us how.
At this time of Passover, we think of the stranger, and of the splitting of the Sea. Joy writes, “Religious communities that treat openly transgender people… as strangers, should recall that God repeatedly commands the Israelites to remember their own experiences of being treated as strangers in the land of Egypt: to remember that they know – because God wants communities devoted to God to know – the soul of a stranger.” Furthermore, Joy sees “God as the one who brought me out of the depths of despair, who split the binary sea of gender and led me across on dry land, who made the impossible – me – a reality.”

We will ask Joy to talk about her assertion that “the covenant with Abraham is founded on Abraham, Sarah, and Jacob’s embrace of trans experience: their willingness to live outside the gender roles they were born to and become the kinds of people they were not supposed to be. By portraying trans experience as the foundation for covenant with Abraham, the Torah plants God’s recognition that people do not have to be what binary gender says we are at the heart of the Abrahamic religious tradition.”

Joy Ladin is the first openly transgender professor in an Orthodox institution. She holds the David and Ruth Gottesman Chair in English at Stern College of Yeshiva University and has written 11 books including 9 books of poetry, her memoir, Though the Door of Life, and her latest book, The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective.

Shabbat Shmini Lunch and Learn (March 30, 2019)

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Join us for a Saturday morning Shabbat service followed by potluck lunch and learn. Bring your own thoughts on aish zarah. What is the reason for this strange, alien fire? For a preview of the parsha, look at a commentary by Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell.

Header image Yoram Raanan – Nadav & Avihu Bring the Unauthorized Incense Offering.

We convene at 10am in the cozy front parlor at Congregation Eitz Chayim, 136 Magazine Street in Cambridge. Please bring a vegetarian dish to share for the potluck. Due to a bat mitzvah taking place in the main sanctuary, kitchen space is very limited. We will have a small cooler. If your item needs to be kept cold, we can accommodate smaller dishes like egg salad, but not bulky green salads.

Samson and Delilah – the REAL Story (February 21, 2019)

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Ruach HaYam Teaching presented by Penina Weinberg at Congregation Eitz Chayim, 136 Magazine Street, Cambridge, MA – February 21, 2019. 6:45pm. (Scroll to end for logistics)

Join us at Ruach HaYam, an independent queer havurah, for a close study of the saga of Samson and Delilah, including Samson’s “miraculous” birth, the riddle of the lion and much more (Judges 13-16), led by Penina Weinberg with a special presentation by Mimi Yasgur on using theater to understand the text. As with the Song of Deborah, we will study stereotypical gender roles, non-normative gender roles, and how power is wielded. Also we’ll note the drama and comedy inherent in this tale.

Banner image: The angel departing from Manoah and his wife; the couple kneeling before a sacrificial pyre with a burning goat and the angel rising over the flames; after Maarten de Vos. Engraving with contemporary coloring. At British Museum.

Penina Weinberg is an independent Hebrew bible scholar whose study and teaching focus on the intersection of power, politics and gender in the Hebrew Bible. She has run workshops for Nehirim and Keshet and has been teaching Hebrew bible for 10 years. She has written in Tikkun and HBI blog, and is the leader and founder of Ruach HaYam.

Mimi Yasgur is an expressive arts therapist and mental health counselor who enjoys integrating her passions for art, creativity, Judaism, and spirituality to create vibrant community.

** Logistics**
Study starts promptly at 7:15 pm. We open the doors at 6:45 for schmoozing. Feel free to bring your own veggie snack for the early part. A parking consideration is in effect for the three blocks around EC during all regularly scheduled events. It is a good idea to put a note in the windshield that you are attending an event at EC.   You will find a note here if you wish to print one out.
Accessibility information: all gender/accessible bathrooms, entry ramp.

Ruach HaYam study sessions provide a queer Jewish look at text, but are welcoming to any learning or faith background, to all bodies, and friendly to beginners.

Song of Deborah: Motherhood, Manhood, and War (January 17, 2019)

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Ruach HaYam Teaching presented by Penina Weinberg at Congregation Eitz Chayim, 136 Magazine Street, Cambridge, MA – January 17, 2019. (Scroll to end for logistics)

Join us at Ruach HaYam, an independent queer havurah, for a close reading of the Song of Deborah (Judges 4-5). We will study stereotypical gender roles, non-normative gender roles, and how power is wielded. We also consider the nature of war. The Song of Deborah is as old as the very ancient Song of the Sea (Ex 15:1-19) and Song of Miriam (Ex. 15:20-21), with which it is paired as haftarah.

The text presents an extraordinary trio of women who run the gamut from magnificent to tragic to disturbing, set against the backdrop of war. It includes one of the most poignant stories in the Hebrew Bible – the little known saga of Sisera’s mother.

Be prepared for a provocative (and queer) look at motherhood, manhood, and war.

You may wish to visit Laurence Olivier’s recital of the story, with illustrations. Quite amazing.

Penina Weinberg is an independent Hebrew bible scholar whose study and teaching focus on the intersection of power, politics and gender in the Hebrew Bible. She has run workshops for Nehirim and Keshet and has been teaching Hebrew bible for 10 years. She has written in Tikkun and HBI blog, and is the leader and founder of Ruach HaYam.

** Logistics**
Study starts promptly at 7:15 pm. We open the doors at 6:45 for schmoozing. Feel free to bring your own veggie snack for the early part. A parking consideration is in effect for the three blocks around EC during all regularly scheduled events. It is a good idea to put a note in the windshield that you are attending an event at EC.
Accessibility information: all gender/accessible bathrooms, entry ramp.

Ruach HaYam study sessions provide a queer Jewish look at text, but are welcoming to any learning or faith background, to all bodies, and friendly to beginners.