What objects do you hold sacred? A ring, a key, a house, or a text? This generative workshop assumes that objects hold energy and power in our lives. Consider the torah, dressed in velvet and draped in silver, for which …

Poetry asks of us a deep presence, both in reading and in writing. It invites us into a kind of attentiveness that can hold gratitude and praise, even alongside grief and longing. Our poems may offer visions of the world …

“A translation can serve as a lens into the underground life of another culture”– Cynthia Ozick  Literary translation involves a deep reading of words; it is the natural companion of both reading and writing. The art and practice of literary …

“The word verse,” writes Edward Hirsch in A Poet’s Glossary, “is traditionally thought to derive from the Latin versus, meaning a ‘line,’ ‘row,’ or ‘furrow.’ The metaphor of ‘plough’ for ‘write’ thus dates to antiquity. Verse may alternately derive from the Latin vertere, …

This workshop was held live on December 25, with the aim of transforming a day that can sometimes be lonely or restless for Jewish writers into one rich with meaning, self-reflection, and productive thinking and writing. The session is for …

In this generative poetry workshop, we will write and read poems about one of the most difficult subjects for writers: romantic love. In this workshop, taking place soon after Tu B’Av, the Jewish holiday of romantic love, we will explore …

In this generative workshop we will study and discuss a range of pre-selected passages from classical Jewish texts such as extracts from the Talmud, verses from the Hebrew Bible, and commentaries by medieval and later rabbis. We will then look …

At the heart of the High Holidays, a poem pulses. Psalm 27 is traditionally recited by Jews every day between the new moon of Elul and the end of Sukkot. For seven weeks, we return again and again to this …

Daniela Naomi Molnar calls it “a generosity too large for us to know.” Tracy K. Smith refers to “the universe [as] a house party.” And Joy Ladin dubs it an “infinity thick/ as star-sparked honey.” In this workshop, we’ll explore …

Texts like the Torah and New Testament are often presented as not only sacred but inviolate and above reproach. For many of us, this means these texts and their difficult subject matter can feel far from us, or so close …

We will read poems from Jewish poets of Eastern Europe and elsewhere and we will marvel together on the idea of poetic lineages: how do poets learn from other poets across time and geography? Is there such a thing as …

In a 1919 literary manifesto, a group of modernist Yiddish poets known in English as the Introspectivists wrote that “the human psyche is an awesome labyrinth,” filled with thousands of beings and inheritances from the past and present, whose complexities …

Spiritual experience often feels private, isolating, uncommunicable. Spiritual autobiographies, from anecdotes to full-blown memoirs, use storytelling techniques to break down this sense of isolation, offering others glimpses of our own struggles and exaltations, and, more importantly, because readers interpret narratives …

One of the most ancient functions of poetry is to make divine presence perceptible through language. This class will probe the intersections between language, poetry, and the Shekhinah, Jewish tradition’s name for divine presence, an aspect of God that who …

Given contemporary poetry’s largely secular leanings, it’s not surprising that few poets today celebrate supernatural miracles, overtly religious experiences, or Divinity, in general. But how does one explain contemporary poetry’s tendency to insist on profound meaning in the ordinary—a tendency …

In this generative workshop, we will look at a Hasidic mystical text that explores the relationship between imagery and abstraction during the watershed moment when the Torah was received at Mount Sinai. Then, taking our cue from Hasidic mysticism and …

Torah does not deal with love very often, but when it does, it is life-changing.  In this workshop we will read biblical texts dealing with four love-relationships.  Writing midrash, we discover what the stories can mean for our own lives, …

If the text does not apply to us it is an empty text…. We take the text in relation to ourselves, understanding ourselves in its light, even as our situation throws its light upon the text, allowing it to disclose …

“Each and every grass has a song” – Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav The Jewish environmental movement has sought to excavate and breathe new life into ancient texts that call us to right relationship with this fragile and holy earth. Jewish …

Our stories and epiphanies are born of crises great and small–moments of decision making, turning points, separation. In this generative workshop we will focus on the most famous framing technique in the Bible–anaphora–to help us see patterns, purpose, contrasts, and …

In this generative workshop, we will explore the power of poems that we receive as fragmentary or broken. The subjects of our discussions will range from the unwitting matriarch of the fragment, Sappho, to the violently lapidary short lyrics of …

The Golden Chain: An Introduction to Yiddish Poetry with Danny Kraft Curious about Yiddish poetry? Eager to draw on Yiddish literature as inspiration for your own writing and art? No language or cultural background is required for this four-week, online …

The German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin, before his death in 1940 when he took his own life to avoid being murdered as a Jew in Europe, wrote: “There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a …