Adult Education
Learning enriches Jewish life and grows Jewish identity. The rabbis also teach us that when two people sit together to study Torah, the presence of God rests between them (Pirke Avot 3:3). At Har HaShem, whether you seek more knowledge, a connection to community or spiritual growth, we believe that these opportunities should exist at every age. We offer both formal and informal learning opportunities for our young people and adults.
For information about Adult Jewish Enrichment offerings, contact Rabbi Fred Greene at fg@harhashem.org.
The Basics
Intro to Judaism
This survey of Judaism course teaches fundamentals of Jewish thought, tradition and practice from a pluralistic and non-denominational perspective. Topics include lifecycle events, rituals, holidays, history, prayer and theology. Interfaith couples, adults considering conversion, and anyone looking to learn more about Jewish life are encouraged to sign up.
For more information, visit www.BoulderHaver.org, where you can sign up. Or contact Stacey at HaverInbox@gmail.com.
Project Zug
Congregation Har HaShem has partnered with Project Zug!
Project Zug (www.projectzug.org) empowers Jews to take ownership over their learning through one-on-one havruta learning (learning with a partner). Project Zug provides the learning materials in an online format, along with video instructions from amazing teachers, so that you can learn together with your partner. Classes are either four sessions or ten sessions. The cost for Project Zug is $36 per person.
There are two ways to engage in Project Zug.
- IF YOU HAVE A STUDY PARTNER: Sign up for any course you like – one of over 30 courses – but you need to register with a partner. You and your havruta/study partner will each need to fill out a registration form. All the courses can be found here.
- IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A STUDY PARTNER: If you have no partner, but would like one OR if you and your partner want to study the same topic as others in the congregation, then choose this option. The course we will be studying together is Intro to the Jewish Bookshelf.
- Course description:The Jewish people have long been called the People of the Book, a fitting name given our deep love for the Jewish textual tradition. For hundreds of years, we've pored over the same sacred texts in an attempt to unlock their wisdom, understand their relevance, and take part in a dialogue and debate that spans generations. Yet, it can be difficult to enter into this conversation without having a good sense of what these foundational books are, how they work, and how to best bring them into our own libraries and lives. In this course, we'll take a close look at the essential core texts that make up the Jewish Bookshelf beginning with the Torah. In the course of our study, we will learn not only what these texts are and how they work but we'll use them as an entryway into conversations about creation in the Torah, self-defense in rabbinic texts, and revelation through the eyes of modern thinkers.
Pursuing Justice
Wednesdays, October 25 and November 1; 6-7:15pm
“Justice, Justice, you shall pursue” commands the Bible. Delve into foundational Jewish teachings, explore the proud tradition of social justice activism by the Reform Movement, and put your learning into action as we consider models for individual and communal action.
Just Add Water: An Introduction to Mikveh
Monday, November 6; 6-7:15pm
Explore the biblical roots of this ancient Jewish water ritual that has soared in popularity in the last decade. Learn about what happens at an immersion and the many reasons – ancient and contemporary – that bring people of all genders to the mikveh waters.
Hebrew
Level 1 Hebrew for Adults with Stuart Feinhor IN PERSON
Sundays 10/15, 11/5, 12/10, 12/17, 1/21, 1/28, 2/11, 2/25, 3/3, 3/10, 4/7, 4/28; 10-11:30am
Get started with the aleph-bet! Join us as we get familiar with the shapes and sounds of the Hebrew alphabet. In this class we will recognize, learn and understand common Hebrew words and phrases that are often heard in Reform congregations and in Jewish prayer. Perfect for Introduction to Judaism alumni and other adults, this course assumes no prior Hebrew experience. A great class to take while your kids are in Sunday Traditional Youth Programming!
Over the past 15+ years at Har HaShem, Stuart Feinhor has been a d’var Torah coach, adult B’nai mitzvah teacher, confirmation co-teacher, and, of course, adult Hebrew teacher. Along with an MA in counseling and an MFA in creative writing, he also earned his MAHL from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
Learn to Read Hebrew for Adults ONLINE
Cohorts beginning on a rolling basis; 10 one-hour sessions, $180
Familiarity with Hebrew can be a key to feeling at home in the Jewish community. Ten live online class sessions with our experienced Hebrew educators and a community of learners, coupled with independent practice between sessions, will enable students to master the alef-bet and recognize and understand common Hebrew words and phrases that are often heard in Reform congregational life. This course assumes no prior Hebrew experience. A true beginner's course!
Reading Hebrew Prayers ONLINE
Cohorts beginning on a rolling basis; 6 one-hour sessions, $120
Continue your Hebrew learning in a new six-session course which focuses on reading and understanding key prayers in the Shabbat evening service. Designed for Learn to Read Hebrew alumni, this course is open to anyone interested in exploring the meaning of Hebrew prayers.
Chanting Torah
Torah Trope with Sara-Jane Cohen
Tuesdays, Oct 10, 17, 24; Nov 7,14, 28, Dec 5,12,19; 7:00-8:15pm
Trope are the symbols that identify the melodies to which Torah is chanted. In this class, you will learn to identify those symbols and how to chant the words of Torah based on the music associated with each symbol. You will also learn how to actually chant from the Torah scroll (which has no vowels, punctuation, or tropes!). Hebrew comprehension is not required, but students do need to be able to read Hebrew with vowels (slowly).
Israel
Israel's Crisis of Democracy: What it Means for American Jews
Thursday, October 19; 7:00pm
Join us for a meaningful discussion with Nadav Tamir, a leading expert on US-Israel relations. Nadav previously served the Israeli Foreign Ministry as Political Officer in Embassy in Washington DC and as Israeli Consul General to New England. He also served as Senior Advisor to the President under Shimon Peres.
Environmentalism
Confronting the Climate Crisis and Cultivating Spiritual Courage
October 9th, 3 - 5:30 pm, at Congregation Nevei Kodesh, Address: 1925 Glenwood Dr, Boulder, CO 80304
Led by trained Dayenu facilitator, Rabbi Laura Bellows, this workshop is part of an emerging field of climate spiritual adaptation work, anchored in practices from The Work That Reconnects (by Joanna Macy). It aims to support Jewish communities to confront the climate crisis together, strengthened by our Jewish histories of courage and resilience and with strategies for avoiding burnout, processing the emotions that arise, staying connected, and moving to bold action.
Rabbi Laura Bellows is the Director of Spiritual Activism and Education at Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action. Dayenu mobilizes American Jewish communities to face the climate crisis, ground in Jewish wisdom and resilience, and move to bold action for a just, livable future.
Making the Connection: Judaism, Food, Climate and You with Becky O'Brien
Wednesday, Oct 25; 6:30-8:00pm
Join this interactive workshop to discuss, in community, the ways in which our personal and communal food choices impact our home, Earth. We'll explore what Jewish tradition has to say about our power as individuals and the delicious ways we can manifest our values in our daily food choices. As Jonathan Safran Foer says, "Saving the planet begins at breakfast." Our conversation will be facilitated by congregant Becky O'Brien, who is the Director of Food and Climate at Adamah, the largest faith-based environmental organization in North America. And, of course, there will also be good food to nosh on! Free, and donations are welcome.
Becky O'Brien, longtime congregant, is the Director of Food and Climate for Adamah (formerly Hazon), the largest faith-based environmental organization in North America.
Arts and Culture
Art as a Spiritual Practice with Leah Friedman
Saturdays, 10/14, 11/18 & 12/9 at 9:45 am-11:30 am
Art making can be used for self expression, to explore a question, or create a wordless prayer. Beginning with an opening prayer, we will take the message, connect it with the Torah portion of the week, and use the teachings to work together and seek creative outlets for communicating visually as we allow our creative process to unfold. Bring an idea or just and open mind and some curiosity- NO prior experience or skill required!
About Leah Friedman: Leah is an artist, therapist, and professor currently serving as faculty and Chair of the art therapy program at Naropa University. She has been training therapists and helping people utilize creative expression and healing for nearly 20 years. She enjoys making art, dancing, and tracking the phases of the moon. Leah is a foodie with lots of allergies, fundamentally pragmatic, yet deeply superstitious. She fiercely loves the blended biological and logical family she has cultivated with care and agony. She finds herself deep in the sandwich of middle-age with a partner, a freshly b’nai mitzvah-ed teenager, and a mother living with dementia in her home. She is a voracious reader, a very good listener, and a passionate advocate for equality.
Jews in Sports with Eli Klyde
Thursdays, Nov. 9 and end on Dec. 7 at 6:30-8 p.m
Do you feel something special when you find out one of the players on your favorite team is Jewish? Why do Jews in sports fascinate us so much? This class will focus on some of the most iconic Jewish athletes in the history of sports, as well as some you might not have heard of. We’ll also take a look at some of the low points of Jewish sports history. Join former sports journalist and Har HaShem member Eli Klyde for this fun look at Jewish history.
Eli Klyde, Ph.D., has a doctorate in journalism from Ohio University and teaches at the University of Northern Colorado.
History
"Kristallnacht" in 1938 Nazi Germany: Its Meaning and Significance 85 Years Later
Thursday, November 9; 11:00am - 12:30pm
Thomas Pegelow Kaplan, The interim chair of CU's Jewish Studies Program, will teach this class. Professor Pegelow Kaplan specializes in Holocaust studies, modern German-Jewish history, histories of violence, language, and culture of Central Europe, and transnational history.
Scholar in Residence: Shaul Magid
Existential Questions - Authentic Responses
Three Days of Meaning and Joy
November 30 - December 2
Shaul Magid is Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard, and the Kogod Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. In 2023-2024 he will be the Visiting Professor of Modern Jewish Studies at Harvard Divinity School. He has been the rabbi of the Fire Island Synagogue in Seaview, Fore Island, NY for the past 25 years. Studying as an undergraduate at Goddard College in Plainfield Vermont, he moved to Israel in 1980, studied for five years in various yeshivot in Jerusalem and then studied for his M.A. in Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University. Returning to the US in 1989, he earned his Ph.D. from Brandeis University in 1994. His rabbinical ordination is from Jerusalem in 1984. He is the author of many books and essays including Hasidism on the Margin (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), From Metaphysics to Midrash (Indiana University Press, 2008), American Post-Judaism: Identity and Renewal in a Postethnic Society (Indiana University Press, 2013), Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity, and the Construction of Modern Judaism (Stanford University Press, 2014), Piety and Rebellion: Essays in Hasidism (Academic Studies Press, 2019), The Bible, the Talmud, and the New Testament: Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik's Commentary to the New Testament (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), and Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical (Princeton University Press, 2021) and his new book The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance (New York: Ayin Press). He is the contributing editor of the column “Teiku” for the Ayin Journal and writes regularly for +972 and Religion Dispatches. He is an elected member of the American Academy for Jewish Research and the American Society for the Study of Religion.
This program is made possible by generous individuals in the Boulder community and presented by the Boulder JCC, Congregation Bonai Shalom, Congregation Har HaShem, Congregation Nevei Kodesh, University of Colorado Program in Jewish Studies.
Climate Change: A Planetary Theology
Thursday, November 30; 5:00pm at CU Boulder, Norlin Library
In the 1970’s nature lovers and academics used the term “ecology” putting the focus on relationships among living organisms. Today we understand the impact on the planet as “climate change.” Are these different or are they all synonyms for the same phenomena? Has the focus on science, data and research separated humans from our relationship to all the living things on earth? What price is paid by this shift? Shaul will explore elements of a theology of the environment that may have been sidelined when our understanding and promotion of climate science dominated popular culture.
Constructive Heresy: Paradigm Shift Judaism
Friday, December 1; 7:15pm at Congregation Har HaShem, following Shabbat services
Judaism and Christianity were once both very engaged with the question of “heresy” or “religious deviance” as a way to define borders of normative religion. Today that language is less common for a variety of reasons. What does “heresy” even mean in our modern times? Does it have a role to play in shaping Jewish thought and practice? How do we define nonconformist Jewish behavior in an age when pluralism enables us, perhaps compel us, to accept whatever a community decides is “Jewish”? Shaul will explore questions Jewish communities and thinkers are always trying to balance between accepted or traditional Jewish norms and outsider or eccentric Jewish practice.
My Way to Neo-Hasidism
Saturday, December 2; 9:00am at Congregation Har HaShem, during Torah Study
Shaul Magid will share his spiritual journey from wayward soul, influenced by American counterculture, to his landing in an intense Jewish spiritual environment in the mid-1970s. Brooklyn and Jerusalem, was a foot-loose time for many who were exploring and experimenting with a variety of Jewish lifestyles. Shaul will reflect on his scholarly trajectory, a path he chose after many years living in ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. He will explore some of these biographical threads, and their impact on his life and journey.
Does Judaism Have a Future in America?
Saturday, December 2; 1:15pm at Congregation Bonai Shalom, following Shabbat services
With the rise of anti-semitism, political and demographic shifts in the Jewish community it may feel we are in a time of transition in the American Jewish community. What might Judaism in America look like in fifty years? Shaul will examine some of the cutting-edge issues that will challenge the next two generations of Jews in this country. This talk will explore the actions Jewish leadership, organizations and individuals can take to cultivate growth, change, and continued vibrancy in the American Jewish community.
Spirit Music and Havdalah
Saturday, December 2; 6:00pm at the Boulder JCC
Come together to celebrate the spirit and joy with three musical performances. Our storyteller who will guide us through this musical experience will be Rabbi Marc Soloway and Rabbi Fred Greene to lead us in Havdallah.
- Cantor Devorah Avery, Cantorial Soloist Emerita Holli Berman, and Friends will bring their voices together, to share glimpses of heartfelt music from the neo-hasidic style to contemporary folk melodies. Music has always been the connecting bridge between these is our effort to cultivate a personal relationship with God through music. Everyone will be invited to sing and dance along.
- Shaul Magid Discovering Banjo with a Jewish Sound For thousands of years Jews lived in many locales and appropriated the music from the cultures around them. In many cases they adopted the music from their surroundings into the liturgy used in synagogues. Drawing from music of the mountain regions from Virgina, Kentucky and North Carolina, Shaul Magid developed a new approach to the Kabbalat Shabbat prayers using old-time Appalachian music on the banjo.
- Jubilee Klezmer is a joyful and diverse group of Boulder area musicians who explore classics and hidden gems of klezmer music and Yiddish song. They are inspired by bands and artists such as The Klezmer Conservatory Band, Veretski Pass, Tsibele, Andy Statman, The Andrews Sisters, Ruth Rubin, and Leonard Cohen. We play, we celebrate, we contemplate, we listen, and we are alle freylekh—all joyful in a musical community.
Engaging with our Sacred Texts
Torah Study
Saturdays; 9:00am
Looking for a bit of learning, a bit of casual conversation, a chance to build your skills and comfort with traditional texts in English? Join a friendly group of members and volunteers for an exploration of a Jewish story, a portion of Torah, a bit of Talmud, or perhaps a contemporary text. Bring your curiosity. Take a break. Have some fun with our tradition. Torah study is meeting in our tent and also available on Zoom.
Kabbalah Reading Group
Wednesdays, 6:30-8:00pm
The Har HaShem Kabbalah Reading Group focuses on Jewish mysticism generally and as applied in everyday life. The idea of studying Jewish mysticism may seem out of reach to some, but no prior kabbalah experience or extensive Jewish study is required to participate in the group.
This year we will read and discuss books by two important thinkers who began their writing and teaching in the area of Kabbalah at the age of 20 (half the age at which traditionally they would be able to begin their studies).
- We will read The Palm Tree of Devora by Moses Cordovero (the RAMAK).
- On alternate weeks we will read from 138 Openings of Wisdom by Rabbi Moshe Luzzatto (the RAMCHAL) 1701-1746.
Check dates and get the Zoom link on our calendar
The Poetry of Prayer, Past and Present: With What Words Do You Find Meaning? with Katherine Schwartz
Wednesdays, April 3 and 10; 6:30-8pm
If you could choose any words to express your deepest wish or sincere gratitude, what would they be? This is one of the questions the rabbis asked when compiling our siddur, prayer book. These “offerings of our hearts” were meant to replace the sacrificial offerings during ancient Temple times in Jerusalem. Did they get it right? Each generation has asked this question and adjusted our formula for and formulations of prayer. There is no greater evidence of this shift in both Hebrew and in English than in the Reform Movement’s generational creation of new siddurim, prayerbooks. We’ll explore this idea of putting words and a structure to our expressions of hope and gratitude through an examination of the different eras of siddurim and creative expressions of t’filah, prayer. We’ll look at the ideas and outside influences that have shaped how we pray: contemporary poetry, music, meditation and even location. We’ll add our own voice to the conversation by experimenting with the words we might choice. You don’t need to know anything about history, Hebrew or even worship services to participate in the conversation. And any opinion about prayer and worship in general is welcome!
Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion Courses
College Commons
HUC-JIR is the Reform movement’s seminary and graduate school. They now offer free online courses for adults and teens investigating a central Jewish theme through conversations with HUC-JIR scholars and academic experts.
Learn more here.
HUC Connect
HUC Connect brings together those who love to learn. With over 130,000 views and listens to our webinar and podcast, HUC Connect invites you to join participants from 55 countries to discover something new about Judaism and about yourself. Click here for more information.
Past or In-Progress Offerings
The Basics
- Jewish and Newish: Entering the High Holy Days
- Becoming Jewish: An Info Session About Conversion to Judaism
Hebrew
Israel
- Reform Judaism in Israel
Jewish Thought
Character Development
Arts and Culture