The Bilhah Zilpah Project, which started in 2020 as an independent study project, has become our biggest event of the year since finding a project home at Jews of Color Sanctuary. Homecoming is a series of events open to the entire Jewish community which usually begins on the Sunday before the Shabbat of parashat Vayeitzei, when Zilpah and Bilhah entre the Torah, coinciding during the week Sigd is celebrated as a national Israeli holiday preserved in the history of the Beta Israel people… and is the anniversary of Jews of Color Sanctuary.
After three years of weekly chevruta study, and at numerous events with folks like you, focusing on the lines of Torat Bilhah Zilpah and character exploration, the past year’s study expanded to include relevant midrash and commentary of these matriarchs. This has introduced exciting insight into ancestral connections, divine power, and generational wisdom for survival which will be interspersed throughout and featured at the closing session of this year’s Bilhah Zilpah Homecoming.
However, first, we will welcome Zilpah’s and Bilhah’s return to the Torah through the twenty-four lines that invoke them and explore the ritual dreaming that has percolated up through the spirited engagement of collaborative sessions. Homecoming’s second session will link the wisdom of Bilhah & Zilpah to women throughout history who have navigated kindred silences and lack of bodily autonomy to inspire our community building and care work today.
Today is Sigd, and the Bilhah Zilpah Homecoming begins this Sunday… amidst all of the change happening, these are frameworks that center longing for and returning home, and giving voice to the voiceless… Torah we desperately need right now, and always. There is still time to register. Invite those you are working alongside building up the world to come, to join us as we welcome these matriarchs at three interactive online sessions of ritual dreaming and deepening relationship with the wisdom of Bilhah and Zilpah:
BILHAH & ZILPAH ENTER – 12-1:30pmET November 23: A Homecoming Celebration to welcome Bilhah & Zilpah as they enter the Torah in parashat Vayeitzei. This interactive session will deepen your relationship with the wisdom of these matriarchs, continue ritual dreaming, and mark the anniversary of Jews of Color Sanctuary.
MODERN MATRIARCHS – 3-4:30pmET December 7: Link the wisdom of Bilhah & Zilpah to women throughout history who have navigated kindred silences and lack of bodily autonomy. Explore how their voices can help us understand our modern lives, find community, survive marginalization, and realize abolition.
BILHAH & ZILPAH: ANCESTRAL STORIES – 3-4:30pmET December 21: Catch up on a year’s worth of learning focused on Bilhah & Zilpah through midrashic tales of ancestral connections, divine power, and generational wisdom for survival.
Register at https://bit.ly/BZenter
The celebration of Sigd is powerfully conveyed in the words of Beit Israel scholar Shula Mola in The Sound of Səgd (ስግድ): Reclaiming Language, Memory, and Belonging which invites us into a journey of the power of naming in sacred conversation with a foundational theme of the Bilhah Zilpah Project. May your Sigd be filled with meaning and joy.
Chag Sigd Sameach
Jews of Color Sanctuary 