In the month of Elul in 2022, Laynie Soloman was on an educational pilgrimage in Europe. The Jewish educator, who has taught Talmud and Jewish studies in many settings, got to know different medieval thinkers and Talmud commentators in the settings in which they worked – Solomon visited Barcelona, Spain and sites in northern and southern France and did her own Torah study there, in the neighborhoods where Rashi, the Ramban and others wrote commentary.

Soloman (who favors the pronoun they) devised their own itinerary. In addition, along with their partner, who does Jewish cultural and political organizing, Solomon met up with European Jewish communal leaders and others doing progressive Jewish cultural work. Since returning, Soloman has created several learning modules and a curriculum based on their learning abroad. They hope the experience will be the basis for a book sometime in the future.

“My goal is to deepen my teaching and bring some of this Torah to my students,” Solomon says.

Soloman serves as Associate Rosh Yeshiva and Director of Transformative Leadership at SVARA: A Traditional Radical Yeshiva, an organization with the goal of empowering queer and trans people to expand Torah and tradition through the study of Talmud. They enjoy facilitating Jewish learning that uplifts and incorporates voices not always heard.

They have worked at SVARA since 2017, and have helped the Chicago-based institution extend their presence nationally through its flagship retreats like Queer Torah Camp. They spearhead SVARA’S teacher training initiatives and helped to develop a teaching Kollel, which is a multi-year program that trains queer and trans people who want to teach Talmud using SVARA’s methodology. Even before the pandemic, SVARA was already facilitating online learning space. Soloman, who has an M.A. in Jewish Education from The Jewish Theological Seminary, works closely with Rabbi Benay Lappe, president and Rosh Yeshiva of SVARA, who founded the organization in 2003.

“Often people mistakenly think that we are learning queer theory in our Beit Midrash. What we are actually doing is what studying Talmud is: We are bringing ourselves to the text. The queerness we bring to it is embedded in who we are. We are learning text authentically as ourselves. Through that, we are opening up the space to understand both the text and ourselves more deeply.

Further articulating their vision of Jewish education, they say, “For me, the core thing is not teaching people about how to be consumers of an interesting or slightly better Judaism, which is what a lot of learning spaces inadvertently do. What I’m hoping to do when I’m teaching is to give people access to make the tradition for themselves. When teaching something like midrash, my hope is not simply to teach students the techniques of how the rabbis made midrash but to turn everyone in the class into someone who can make midrash themselves. When I’m teaching Halachah, or Jewish thought and practice, I am not just teaching how to do any particular behavior, but I am teaching them the ways they can make halachic decisions for themselves.

“Empowerment is something I’ve learned from Benay and that has become a through line in my teaching.”

Their first experience teaching was at Camp Harlam in the Poconos, a summer camp affiliated with the Reform movement. Then, they worked as a song leader and counselor.

“I always fancied myself as an explainer and know-it-all,” they say.

Looking back, Soloman says they knew they always wanted to be a teacher. “When I think about the stages of my life, it is punctuated by teachers who were impactful in those moment,” they say, citing teachers in college and theologians who encouraged them to teach about religion and tradition and God. They also credit Rabbi Lappe, their teacher and chavruta, or study partner.

In addition, they cite their mother and bubbie, or grandmother, for having impact as teachers, not in a formal sense, but as role models.

“In a different world, my bubbie would have been a theologian. In a world that appreciated the wisdom of women,” they say, emphasizing, “Working class women.”

They explain that their grandmother, born in 1927, was one of their primary caregivers when they were a child. Even when Soloman was in college, they’d sit together and have snacks, and their grandmother, who was self-taught and took Torah seriously, would make comments about biblical characters like, “I really blame Sarah and I don’t know how we can daven to her. If she hadn’t been so angry and banished Hagar, we’d live in a different world.”

For Soloman, their mother, a lawyer, is the image of a lifelong learner. She was always reading Jewish philosophy and theology, like books by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik and “instilled in me a sense that this was accessible to me.” Still, whenever Soloman finishes a book or is curious about an idea, they turn first to their mother for her thoughts.

Soloman, who is the parent of a 7-month old son, works out of Philadelphia, where they grew up in the conservative movement. As for their Jewish identity now, Soloman says, “Just Jew.” They are also an adjunct professor at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and teach introductory courses as well as classes in text. When not learning Talmud, Soloman enjoys reading about liberation theology, collecting comic books and singing niggunim, or wordless melodies.

Over these last years, Soloman has enjoyed getting to know the other Pomegranate Fellows in their year and across the years.

“Those in the field of Jewish education are a very particular and passionate group. It’s different from those working in the fields of Jewish identity  or continuity. There’s something about meeting other teachers that makes me feel stimulated and inspired. It has been a joy.”

“I feel very privileged to get to do the work I do,” they say.