ONLINESpiraling Through Time: The Radical Practice of Shabbat

Join us to delve into biblical frameworks for Shabbat as a powerful practice of rest and renewal. How do we understand and relate to this weekly cycle? How might Shabbat inform or disrupt our assumptions about what it means to own, rest and relate to the earth? Through a combination of text study and personal reflection, we’ll consider our contemporary practice and its big-picture impact on the climate, the earth, our communities and our souls.

Rabbi Getzel Davis received his bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University and his rabbinical ordination from the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College, where he also received a master’s in Jewish education. He works as a rabbi and educator at Harvard Hillel and also as a Harvard University chaplain, where much of his work is to engage unobservant students. He is also the adviser for the Reform minyan, teaches regular classes and counsels students, faculty and community members. Getzel is also the founder and executive director of Unorthodox Celebrations, a service that connects unaffiliated Jews with inspiring rabbis and cantors nationwide to facilitate meaningful weddings, bar mitzvahs and baby-namings. Getzel is also a contributing blogger at HuffPost and received an honorable mention in Newsweek’s Top 50 Rabbis of 2015 for leading Yom Kippur services at Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park. He recently was honored with CJP’s Chai in the Hub award for his work with Unorthodox Celebrations.

Leora Mallach, MEd, is executive director and co-founder of Beantown Jewish Gardens. She first worked for the Teva Learning Center in the fall of 1997. Since then, she has worked for a variety of other experiential learning programs, including Hulbert Outdoor Center, Tresslercare Wilderness Services, Vermont Global Village Project, American Jewish World Service, Project Adventure and the Boston Natural Areas Network. She helped design the Green Apprenticeship program at Kibbutz Lotan in the southern Arava and is proud to see how it has grown since its inception. She is the former director of the Adva Network, working with alumni of the Teva Learning Center and Adamah: The Jewish Environmental Fellowship in professional development, networking and job placement in the Jewish community. In her free time, she can be found hiking in the mountains, berry-picking or doing crafty projects with her B.B. batiks fabrics. She is otherwise dreaming about homesteading projects on her property, especially her annual springtime maple sugaring.