In a rose-colored dungeon somewhere deep beneath the Old City of Jerusalem, Xava and Binya sat, on Chol HaMoed Pesach 5781, with 63 gemstones - one for each tractate of Talmud - surrounding them in concentric circles, candlelight glinting off their faces onto the cave-like walls. With incense of cedar and rosemary swirling above, they chanted “hanotenet l’adam da’at” - “the one who gives humans knowledge” - over and over again until the divine presence of Shechinat El came to rest among them, and the spirit of God made each gem glow in turn. Soon, the glowing gems, the fiery candlelight and the swirling incense overwhelmed their senses, and they both entered into a trance-like dream state; when they awoke, one gem was floating mid-air - the 34th one, representing Masechet Sanhedrin - and pulsating with an incandescent maroon.

Xava and Binya then repeated this process, with 113 stones for the number of pages in Sanhedrin, and 2 stones for the number of sides for each page, and through this came to know what would be the next sugye they would teach. A decidedly random process, the outcome of which only Hashem could decide, it landed them in the middle of Talmudic Flyover Country - a sugye about random tort law and esoteric logics about Mishnaic speech.

This is how Talmud for Boring B!tches was born.

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Over the course of a month together, we invite you to join us, and discover how we can find the queerness hiding in Talmud about seemingly BORING subjects like tax law, bureaucratic structures and contract negotiations. Together, we’ll take the SVARA method of Talmud study into places it’s never been before - not the hot-sexy clearly-queer trancestral radical treatises, but the vast swamps of Talmud that needle into seemingly meaningless rabbinic word choices to make claims about boring halacha.

We believe that the more boring Talmud we learn, the more sharp our Queer Talmud minds will get, and the more we can bring the power of our Queer Talmud into the boring parts of our own lives and communities.

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Open to boring b!tches, of any gender, and those who love us 

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only req. is knowing your alef bet. contact xava&binya if u wanna take the class and need help getting ur alef bet!

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Sundays 4/25-5/23 (5 total), 4-6pm EST/1-3pm PST
4-4:45pm xevruta study
4:45-6pm shiur, incl. 10 minute break
$18/class ($90/total) sliding scale; NOTAFLOF
40 students max, so sign up soon!
(This class will be recorded, exclusively for the use of students who miss sessions)