Jewish Learning for You

New Online Classes!

Mind Into Matter

My favorite texts show up in the class (“Finding Hope”) that starts tomorrow night. Join me as we follow these texts into the depths (literally), gaze into the void, all in search of true hope. See below.

What You Think Matters, So Think Carefully

This might be the most important Torah portion of them all: it contains the revelation at Sinai and the 10 commandments, against the backdrop of our ancestors fleeing their oppressors: the Amalekites and the Egyptians.

What do the Israelites have to do to overcome, to find freedom ?

According to one of my favorite teachers, Rabbi Shmuel Bornsztain (aka the Shem Mishmuel, d 1926), they need one thing. It’s not military might. It’s not prayer, or piety. They need to throw away despair. That is what has weighed on them like the heaviest cloud and held them back.

He sees the move out of Egypt as an inner struggle more than a geographic or political one. He writes

“A person is where their consciousness is.”

Until they can let go of their oppressors psychological hold over them, they have no chance. As soon as they imagine a world of goodness and hope, the redemption begins.

The stakes are so high right now. There will always be those who seek to make life about power, force, brutality and division. We will not let them, and we will have to fight. But that battle is first an internal one. We must not give in to despair. As long as we can imagine a world of a different order, it lays ahead of us. L’chaim v’la’atid - to life and to the future.

Rabbi Josh

Finding Hope in Darkness: Jewish Wisdom for the 21st Century

February 4th and 11th · 7:00pm–8:30pm PST

We live at a time when many of the things that once held life together feel as though they’re coming apart. In this two-session class, we’ll explore Jewish texts that look directly into chaos, fear, and uncertainty—and ask how hope is cultivated when easy answers fail.

Drawing on ancient stories, mystical teachings, and modern thinkers, we’ll study texts that confront the sometimes absurd experience of being human and explore how Jewish wisdom imagines a life of meaning in dark times.

Judaism 1 Oh! 1: Foundations of Jewish Tradition

February 18th, 25th & March 4th · 7:00pm–8:30pm PST

Curious about the basics of Jewish life—or looking to brush up on what you once knew?

This three-part online series introduces the building blocks of Judaism: core texts, ideas, and questions that shape Jewish tradition. We’ll explore foundational works like the Mishnah, Talmud, and Midrash, and see how they form a rich, intergenerational weave of wisdom.

Along the way, we’ll engage big questions about belief, God, and meaning, and encounter beautiful texts that offer a taste of Jewish spirituality. This is an accessible introduction with depth, clarity, and a few surprises—designed for beginners, returners, and the curious alike.

Troublemakers, Rebels & Radicals: Heroes of the Jewish Tradition

March 11th & 18th · 7:00pm–8:30pm PST

This is an online class. You will receive a link after you register.

Judaism is a tradition of norms, cooperation and upright behavior. But it is also founded on tales of rebels and radicals who stood up to authority and refused to accommodate. What is behind these stories of audacious resistance? What is the meeting place of the spiritual and political and how do such stories create a uniquely Jewish approach to living in the world?

Just in time for Passover — the archetypal story of resistance, where we will find layers you haven't noticed before — we will take a deep dive into some of the most powerful and challenging texts in the Jewish tradition. We'll explore the dangers of passive acceptance, the limits of radicalism, and ask what these texts have to tell us about our lives today.

No knowledge of Hebrew is required to love this class