Westminster Synagogue invites you to our second annual WCLS fund series, a cross-denominational learning series on the themes of peripheries, memory, and symbols. 

A light dinner will be served from 6:30-7:00pm, catered by Balady. This will be followed by Chaburot. Please find a full list of chaburot topics and teachers below. The evening will end with dessert and Divrei Torah, from 8:30-9:00pm. To join for dinner, please register for that evening at least one week in advance, so we have numbers for the caterers. 

Cost should not be a barrier to attend, and a limited number of bursary places are available. Please email nivi@westminstersynagogue.org to request one of these places. 

Monday, 9 June, 2025 • 13 Sivan 5785

6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Conversations on Boundaries Drawing a Line Round the Bible: What's In and What's Out with Rabba Dr Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz We tend to think of the Tanakh - the Bible - as a self-evident unit - but who decided which books would be included, and were there books that were left out? We'll explore the history of biblical canonization and reflect on why it happened at all.

Contemporary Community Gleanings: Scrapbook Disability Theology with Rabbi Daisy Bogod The gleanings are the scraps we are commanded to leave for the outsiders: for the poor, the stranger, the widow. Our legacy as Jews is one of the outside, the periphery - and how much more so with intersecting marginalised identities. Together, we will gather the remnants of the harvest, of our history, to take the best and wrestle with the worst of our tradition and be able to offer it as something both ancient and new, focusing particularly on experiences of disability in our texts 

Ritual Objects and Symbols The Not so Jewish Symbols with Rabbi Kamila Kopřivová What symbols have been attributed to Judaism and “the Jews” over the centuries—by both Jews and their oppressors? In this session, we will examine visual stereotypes linked to antisemitic tropes—from medieval imagery to modern memes—and explore how these symbols evolve and persist today.

Collective Consciousness Memories of Destruction with Rabbi Yael Jaffe In this session, we'll explore some of the Jewish rituals and customs that are described as a "zecher l’churban" - a means to remember the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. What does it mean to perform grief in this way on a daily basis? How are these practices meant to shape Jewish consciousness and memory?

Plenary D’var Torah Lamentations and Its Afterlives: Biblical Memory as a Signifier for Ongoing Trauma with Rabbi Deborah Kahn-Harris The book of Lamentations preserves the memory of the greatest rupture in biblical history—the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 587/586 BCE. We will explore both the poetic structuring of this memory and how it has allowed the book to signify many subsequent traumas. We will consider the afterlife of Lamentations through a series of later works—literary, musical, and artistic—and how these reinterpretations transform our memory of the original event and its relationship to other significant traumas, both within the Jewish community and beyond.

Monday, 23 June, 2025 • 27 Sivan 5785

6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Peripheries: Conversations on Boundaries with Rabbi Jeremy Gordon 

Contemporary Community Ovadiah the Ger; gathering converts from the fringes of society with Rabbi Miriam Lorie A treasure-trail session through history, music, manuscripts and halacha, with very contemporary resonances. In the 12th century, the Rambam, Maimonides, penned an emotional letter to a convert named Ovadiah: "You ask me if you, too, are allowed to say in the blessings and prayers you offer alone or in the congregation: “Our God” and “God of our fathers”.  Also in the 12th century, a convert named Ovadiah journaled the epic journey of his life, born in Oppido, southern Italy, where he was intended for the Priesthood. The fragments of his journal, along with a siddur and music he wrote, were found centuries later in the Cairo Geniza. Join to piece together a historical, halachic and communal mystery.

Ritual Objects and Symbols Moshe’s staff! with Rabbi Benji Stanley It’s important in the Torah, Moses’ staff. Indeed, what sort of object is a staff in the Torah anyway- what is its purpose and significance? We will consider especially the incident that bars Moshe from the land, considering how confusion about the very nature of an object might have played a crucial part. 

Collective Consciousness Lost and Found: When the Torah Disappeared—and Returned to Us with Lilinaz Evans Explore moments in the Tanakh when the Jewish people lost touch with our sacred texts—and how leaders like Ezra HaSofer and Hulda reignited collective consciousness. Together, we’ll uncover how Torah re-emerges from the fringes to the heart of the people.

Plenary D’var Torah When the mystics meet the animals with Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg Why we can’t understand what the birds or saying, or can we? And, why, according to the Mei HaShiloach, the animals helped persuade God to create human beings.

Monday, 7 July, 2025 • 11 Tammuz 5785

6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Conversations on Boundaries Boundaries between Jewish and Non-Jewish with Rabbi Leah Jordan

What makes a text or anything Jewish or not Jewish? What makes a person Jewish or not Jewish? Come learn some fascinating sources that ask (and perhaps answer) these questions. 

Contemporary Community with Rabbi Mark Solomon 

Ritual Objects and Symbols Division for the Sake of Heaven (and Earth) with Yael Roberts  The parochet (curtain) is a symbol of division, separating the Kodesh (Holy) from the Kodesh Kodashim (Holy of Holies) in the tabernacle. In this session, we will explore this symbolic curtain, along with the keruvim embroidered onto it, as a model for machloket l’shem shamayim—disagreement for the sake of Heaven.  A passage from the Zohar on Bereishit links the division of the parochet to the supernal act of creation, where heaven and earth come into being through separation. Through studying this text, we will examine sacred models of disagreement embodied by the keruvim, in their turning both toward and away from one another.

Collective Consciousness What our consciousness collects while we sleep: Dreams and symbols in the Talmud with Rabbi Lev Taylor How do our rabbis engage in dream interpretation, and what can we learn for understanding our dreams today?

Plenary D’var Torah Bloodshed at the Altar with Rabbi Josh Levy What are the risks if we get our religious priorities wrong? We will study an extraordinary story from the Babylonian Talmud about religious fervour and bloodshed at the altar. Together we will explore the relative importance of the ritual and the ethical in our religious lives.