Chavruta is a classical form of Jewish study, in which two people grapple with a text together.  The Talmud declares, “Two students learning together sharpen one another”. In our current (tenth) series, we will be studying a sugya (section of the Talmud) from Tractate Shabbat of the Talmud, a section that contains the famous teaching of the Golden Rule.

If you were involved in the previous course and you want to continue, please email us at acp@alyth.org.uk. If you are new to the Alyth Chavruta Project, please join us by filling out the registration form – you can join with a study partner already in mind, or we can find you one!

Why Chavruta?
Chavruta is the perfect study for our complicated times as it can be done flexibly at a convenient time, in-person or online. It is also a great introduction to text study as it can be done in partnership with someone with similar experience and at your own pace.

How will it work?
The new course on Tractate Shabbat of the Babylonian Talmud will revert to Thursdays at 19:00. The following week’s text pack will be printed and given to those who attend in person, while digital copies will be sent out to those who attend online on Friday afternoon.

To download the text pack for our sixtha and final week, click here (for those who prefer to download the text pack without covers, please click here).

For those who want to follow the Steinsaltz translation of the sugya on Sefaria, plesae click here. For Rabbi Elliott’s video introducing Sefaria, please click here.

For Rabbi Elliott’s video explaining the structure of the Talmudic page, click here.

The first week’s section of the text is very technical and contains a number of words of Talmudic jargon that will be new to many. Please click here for a new video from Rabbi Elliott that will explain some of thse terms, and help to understand this opening to the sugya.

Please click here to read our updated FAQs, including our top tips on Chavruta study.