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National Havurah Committee

Rebuild With Love
–נבנה על ידי אהבה
נשוב להבנות, והעולם עמנו יבנה, על ידי אהבת חנם

Summer Institute 2025

When: Monday, July 28 – Sunday, August 3, 2025

Where: Pearlstone Retreat Center, Reisterstown Maryland

 

Register for Summer Institute 2025

Ask Us Anything! Zoom Q&A Sessions May 2 & May 8

Do you have questions about registration? Wonderign what a typical day at ‘Tute looks like?  Ideas for programming? Want to know more about housing and facilities at Pearlstone? Join the Core Team, NHC Board Chair and Programs Director on Zoom to get all your questions answered.

Register to get the Zoom links for these two hourlong sessions:

 

Year-Round Updates

Subscribe to Mitch Chefitz’s weekly newsletter: http://mitchellchefitz.substack.com/

Siyyum on Makkot: Thursday May 1st, 2025. Register to get the Zoom link.

About Summer Institute

Summer Institute provides a unique opportunity for serious study, moving prayer, spirited conversation, late-night jam sessions, singing, dancing, and meditation – all in the company of people from a wide range of backgrounds. Each year, participants leave the Institute reinvigorated and excited to return to their home communities to share new ideas, skills, and experiences.

Community

At the Summer Institute, every teacher is also a student and every student is a teacher. People who are usually called “rabbi” or “professor” throughout the year go by their first names here. And people who rarely take active leadership roles in their communities discover that they, too, can teach and contribute to the community.

One of the NHC Summer Institute’s greatest strengths is the diversity of its participants. We are musicians, doctors, students, furniture makers, retirees, Jewish professionals, homemakers, teachers, activists, and just about everything else:

  • Intergenerational: At a previous Summer Institute, the youngest participant was a month and a half old, while we had 9 folks in our midst with the wisdom of over 80 years. Participants from all age groups shared meals, stories, teachings, songs, and talents.
  • Pluralistic and Inclusive: The NHC Summer Institute includes people committed to various forms of traditional and non-traditional Jewish practice, Jews from birth, Jews by choice, Jews with multiple religious heritages, non-Jews, and people exploring Judaism.
  • Diverse backgrounds and lives: NHC Summer Institute participants hold a variety of identities including LGBTQ and straight; people of color, Sephardi, Mizrachi and Ashkenazi; urban, rural, and suburban; Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, Reform, Renewal, secular, and Jewish without labels.
  • Learning for Everyone: NHC Summer Institute participants also have a variety of Jewish learning backgrounds, from those with no formal Jewish education to those with Ph.D.s in Talmud.The dynamic process of exploring together what Judaism and Jewishness means in our lives is a highlight of the Summer Institute.