The Expanding Kabbalah in Gender Workshop led by Rav Michaela Brown will be held on Sunday, October 26th from 2:45pm to 4:15 pm. We will meet at The Highland Park Community Center in the Village View room. Light snacks provided.  

Kabbalah is the core of Jewish mysticism and many of its texts, including the Zohar, are historically linked to medieval times. The 10 Sephirot ("Eminences") that make up the Divine are the building blocks of Kabbalistic thought. The rabbis' descriptions of the Ten include their associations with a distinct duo of Masculine and Feminine. What does it mean to engage with these concepts in the 21st century, where we have scholarship that dismantles gender binaries and broad acceptance of romantic/sexual intimacy between people of the same gender?

Let's embark on the messy work of making sense of an old, yet rich mystical system, while bringing our own modern sensibilities. We'll learn some basics of the Sephirot system and notice how the gender binary of Kabbalah isn't as static as it first appears. People of all genders and sexualities welcome; all participants must participate in a way that affirms LGBTQ+ identity.

Rabbi Michaela Brown (she/her) is the associate chaplain for Jewish (and Interfaith) Life at both Carleton College and St. Olaf College. She has been playing with the intersection of sex & gender with Judaism since college, where her degree from the University of Virginia was in Jewish Studies with a minor in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She participated in the joint Hebrew College and SVARA Talmud Pedagogy Fellowship, solidifying her interest in teaching text and celebrating students in their diverse identities. Her capstone learning project at Hebrew College was reading about the creation of the first man and woman in the Zohar and analyzing it with queer theory. She received semikha (rabbinic ordination) from Hebrew College in 2024 and has been slowly making the Twin Cities her home ever since.