The Nearness of Shekhinah: Writing Through Elul
2026-08-19 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-08-26 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York) | Zoom
Wednesdays, August 5, 12, 19 and 26, 2026
12-1:30pm ET
$180

The traditional Elul and High Holiday liturgy and ritual is brimming with images of God intended to inspire us to imagine God as close enough to hear and know and judge and forgive us. But evocative as these ancient images are, they can also make God seem distant, judgmental rather than compassionate, and inspire shame, guilt, and fear rather than teshuvah, the process of turning back to and experiencing divinity as the source and sustainer of our lives.

But Judaism also offers a radically different approach to divinity, the Shekhinah tradition, which encourages us to imagine divinity not as looking down on us from above but as with us, in us, all around us, present in human space, time, and lives.

The Shekhinah tradition is not only an ancient treasury of images that emphasize the nearness of divinity. The tradition empowers us to creatively adapt and develop the images we need to find, recognize, and respond to divine presence in ways that speak to our own joys, doubts, needs, vulnerabilities, angers, experiences, and lives.

This series is designed to help us participate in the Shekhinah tradition and make it our own by discussing examples that highlight different ways to think and write about divine nearness. We will explore these texts from a creative writing perspective, treating them as models, inspirations, provocations, and foundations for our own ways of writing about, imagining, or otherwise relating to divinity. Each class will include voluntary writing assignments based on the texts we discussed, and include time for at least a little sharing of our writing.

The class is open to all who are interested, regardless of your beliefs or prior experience with Judaism, text study, creative writing, or theology. It’s designed to complement and build on earlier Shekinah classes offered by Dr. Joy Ladin, emphasizing class discussion and creativity over theory, theology, and history, and offering a different focus, examples, and writing prompts. Elul is the ideal time to immerse in the Shekhinah tradition.

All sessions will be recorded and sent to participants. We encourage live attendance for you to get the most out of the experience.

Dr. Joy Ladin has published ten books of poetry, including her new collection, Shekhinah Speaks (Selva Oscura Press); The Book of Anna, winner of the National Jewish Book Award; and Transmigration, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. She is also the author of a memoir of gender transition, Through the Door of Life, which was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, and The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards and the Triangle Award. Ladin has received fellowships and scholarships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fulbright Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies Research, among other honors. A nationally recognized speaker on transgender issues, she convenes an online conversation series, “Containing Multitudes,” which is available at JewishLive.org/multitudes. Her writing is available at joyladin.wordpress.com.

Jewish Writers' Circle Anthology Celebration and Reading
2026-09-08 12:00 - 13:00
Tuesday, September 8, 2026
12-1 p.m. ET

Join us to celebrate the contributions of our Jewish Writers’ Circles members and the launch of our first anthology showcasing their creations. Jewish Writers’ Circles are grassroots peer-led communities of writers who meet monthly for in-person gatherings (e.g. homes and cafes). Jewish Writers’ Circle (JWC) participants explore Jewish wisdom texts, deepen relationships and grow in their writing practice. This event is their opportunity to showcase their work to you as we launch our second year of this inititaive.

This event will be recorded and sent to participants following the event. We encourage live attendance for you to get the most out of the experience.
