Elul Challenge: Torah Study for Your Soul
Learning With Your Own Havruta
Course Details
The Hebrew month of Elul is the spiritual lead-up to the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe (Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur). It’s a season when Jews around the world turn inward and take stock — of our choices, our relationships, and the people we hope to become in the year ahead.
This Project Zug course invites you to mark this sacred time through weekly Torah study. Each week, you’ll dive into the parashah (Torah portion) with a special focus on topics and questions relevant to this season of repentance – integrity, forgiveness, human and divine responsibility, and vulnerability.
Whether you're new to text study or a seasoned learner, this course offers meaningful entry points for anyone seeking:
- A structured, reflective practice for the month of Elul
-A chance to study Torah in havruta (in pairs), an ancient Jewish way of learning that sparks connection and insight
We created this course in partnership with the Simchat Torah Challenge, a global initiative inviting Jews to learn the weekly parashah as a way of honoring those lost on October 7, 2023. We learn this material, therefore, in memory of our Jewish brothers and sisters, and as a commitment to spiritual growth.
Rabbi Shai Held-- philosopher, theologian, and Bible scholar-- is President and Dean at the Hadar Institute. He received the prestigious Covenant Award for Excellence in Jewish Education, and has been named multiple times by Newsweek as one of the fifty most influential rabbis in America and by the Jewish Daily Forward as one of the fifty most prominent Jews in the world. Rabbi Held is the author of Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence (2013), The Heart of Torah (2017), and Judaism is About Love (2024) and he is the host of Hadar's newest podcast, Answers WithHeld.
Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg is a preeminent Jewish thinker, theologian, activist, president of the J.J. Greenberg Institute for the Advancement of Jewish Life, and Senior Scholar in Residence at the Hadar Institute. Together with Elie Wiesel, he founded CLAL: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership and served as its president until 1997. From 1997 to 2008, he served as founding president of Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foundation. Rabbi Greenberg was one of the founders of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry and a pioneer in the development of Holocaust education and commemoration, serving as the Executive Director of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust in 1975 and as chair of the United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum in 2000-2002. He is the author of five books, including The Triumph of Life: A Narrative Theology of Judaism (JPS, 2024).
Rabbi David Kasher is the Director of Hadar West Coast. He grew up bouncing back and forth between the Bay Area and Brooklyn, hippies and Hassidim - and has been trying to synthesize these two worlds ever since. He received rabbinic ordination at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and a doctorate in Legal Studies from Berkeley Law. He has served as Senior Jewish Educator at Berkeley Hillel, Director of Education at Kevah, and Associate Rabbi at IKAR. He is the author of ParshaNut: 54 Journeys into the World of Torah Commentary.
