7:00 pm
- 9:00 pm
Mayyim Hayyim
Creating the Jewish Marriage You Want
Join us for Mayyim Hayyim’s six-session seminar for engaged and recently married couples that will provide tools to solidify a strong relationship and explore different ways of creating a Jewish home. LGBTQ+ and interfaith couples welcome. All registrations include six in person classes, two immersion gift certificates, and a personal meeting with Rabbi Jackson.
Discussion Topics Include
Communication and Coupledom
How do we argue productively?
How do we recognize the actions and words that support or relationship and those that hurt it?
Decision-making and Financial Management
How do we negotiate important decisions for our family honestly and respectfully?
How will we manage our money?
How can tzedakah, giving to others, play a role in our lives
Jewish Ritual
How does Judaism sanctify a relationship?
How can Jewish rituals help mark important transitions, such as deciding if and how to begin a family?
How might we relate to the ritual of mikveh within our relationship, on our own terms?
Sexuality
What does Judaism teach about sex in marriage?
How do we build and maintain a healthy sex life?
Building a Jewish Family
What does ‘a Jewish family’ mean to us?
How will our relationship change if we choose to have children?
Niddah: Exploring the Boundaries of Intimacy
This session will cover niddah, the practice of obstaining from intimacy around the time of the menstrual cycle. This discussion-based and participant-driven session will explore central texts, while focusing on real niddah experiences today. As with all Beyond the Huppah sessions, couples will have time to reflect on their learning privately and with the larger group.
Faculty
Rabbi Jackson Mercer was ordained at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College in Newton, MA with a Specialization in Spirituality and Social Justice and a Masters in Jewish Education with a concentration in Israel Education in conjunction with the iCenter. Jackson was a part of the inaugural cohort of The Nachshon Project’s undergraduate fellowship as well as the first cohort of Graduate School Fellows as well as being a Hartman Limmud Rabbinic Fellow and one of the inaugural Learning Fellow’s at Lehrhaus: Jewish Tavern and House of Learning in Boston. He has worked to build singing prayer communities across the country in California (Congregation Rodef Sholom, URJ Camp Newman, University Synagogue, and NFTY), in New York (at Kehillat Romemu as the Joseph S. Ingber Rabbinic Fellow) as well as here in Boston (Asiyah Jewish Community, Temple Beth Sholom of Framingham, Temple Beth Zion, and Mishkan Tefilah). When not recording his own music, like his most recent album – “Notnim B’ahavah Reshut”, Jackson sings with the Chaverai Nevarech Band featured on R’ Josh Warshawsky’s albums.
Rachel Jackson, owner of Binah Design, is a scribe, artist, graphic designer, and bookbinder. Rachel’s first art commission was the design of a bar mitzvah invitation, when she was 11 (before her own bat mitzvah).
Since then, Rachel pursued her love of making things by hand, intertwined with Jewish tradition in a number of ways. Rachel studied sofrut (sacred Hebrew calligraphy) from renowned teacher Jen Taylor Friedman, and has been working and teaching as a soferet since 2015. She has written two English language megillot that abide by all the rules of sofrut, which are the only two known kosher English megillot in existence. Her teaching has focused on providing accessible opportunities for traditionally marginalized communities to access the texts and profession of sofrut including the first class accessible to deaf and hard of hearing participants.
Questions? Please email us, or call 617-244-1836 x 205.
Presented in partnership with Base Boston