Disability Torah and Spiritual Subversiveness
with Julia Watts Belser
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When
Fridays - 3 Weeks
3:00-4:30 pm ET · 12:00 noon -1:30 pm PT
May 16 · May 23 · May 30
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Disability wisdom can be a powerful catalyst for transformative Torah.
In this class, we’ll read biblical stories through the prism of lived disability experience: reckoning with Moses as a disabled prophet, Shabbat as a call to embrace radical rest, and Ezekiel’s prophetic vision as a way of glimpsing God on Wheels. Braiding the insights of disabled activists and artists alongside classical texts, we’ll grapple together with questions of ableism and injustice, explore spiritual and practical strategies for challenging normativity, and crack open new perspectives on divine power and presence. And we’ll take up a call at the heart of disability culture: to turn with gentleness toward our own flesh, to build a world that honors the complexity and the sacredness of all our bodies and minds.
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This class will be recorded and available to enrolled students to watch later.
Cost
This course is available at a sliding scale cost of $126 (the true cost), $99 or $72.
If you can afford the full price, we hope you will choose that option, which allows us to continue to offer lower rates and scholarships to those who otherwise would not be able to access this learning because of financial barriers.
If you need financial aid beyond the sliding scale, please fill out this simple form, and we will get right back to you.
with Julia Watts Belser
—
When
Fridays - 3 Weeks
3:00-4:30 pm ET · 12:00 noon -1:30 pm PT
May 16 · May 23 · May 30
—
Disability wisdom can be a powerful catalyst for transformative Torah.
In this class, we’ll read biblical stories through the prism of lived disability experience: reckoning with Moses as a disabled prophet, Shabbat as a call to embrace radical rest, and Ezekiel’s prophetic vision as a way of glimpsing God on Wheels. Braiding the insights of disabled activists and artists alongside classical texts, we’ll grapple together with questions of ableism and injustice, explore spiritual and practical strategies for challenging normativity, and crack open new perspectives on divine power and presence. And we’ll take up a call at the heart of disability culture: to turn with gentleness toward our own flesh, to build a world that honors the complexity and the sacredness of all our bodies and minds.
—
This class will be recorded and available to enrolled students to watch later.
Cost
This course is available at a sliding scale cost of $126 (the true cost), $99 or $72.
If you can afford the full price, we hope you will choose that option, which allows us to continue to offer lower rates and scholarships to those who otherwise would not be able to access this learning because of financial barriers.
If you need financial aid beyond the sliding scale, please fill out this simple form, and we will get right back to you.
with Julia Watts Belser
—
When
Fridays - 3 Weeks
3:00-4:30 pm ET · 12:00 noon -1:30 pm PT
May 16 · May 23 · May 30
—
Disability wisdom can be a powerful catalyst for transformative Torah.
In this class, we’ll read biblical stories through the prism of lived disability experience: reckoning with Moses as a disabled prophet, Shabbat as a call to embrace radical rest, and Ezekiel’s prophetic vision as a way of glimpsing God on Wheels. Braiding the insights of disabled activists and artists alongside classical texts, we’ll grapple together with questions of ableism and injustice, explore spiritual and practical strategies for challenging normativity, and crack open new perspectives on divine power and presence. And we’ll take up a call at the heart of disability culture: to turn with gentleness toward our own flesh, to build a world that honors the complexity and the sacredness of all our bodies and minds.
—
This class will be recorded and available to enrolled students to watch later.
Cost
This course is available at a sliding scale cost of $126 (the true cost), $99 or $72.
If you can afford the full price, we hope you will choose that option, which allows us to continue to offer lower rates and scholarships to those who otherwise would not be able to access this learning because of financial barriers.
If you need financial aid beyond the sliding scale, please fill out this simple form, and we will get right back to you.
Meet Julia
Julia Watts Belser (she/her) is a rabbi, scholar, activist, and spiritual teacher, as well as a longtime activist for disability, LGBTQ+, and gender justice. She is a professor of Jewish Studies in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Georgetown University and core faculty in Georgetown's Disability Studies Program. Her work brings ancient Jewish texts into provocative conversation with disability studies, feminist thought, queer theory, and environmental justice. Her latest book, Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole, won a National Jewish Book Award and the Grawemeyer Award in Religion. She’s also an avid wheelchair hiker, a devoted gardener, and a lover of wild places.
