Experience the Beit Midrash with Rabbi Dalia Marx, Ph.D.

Temple Emanu-El will welcome Rabbi Dalia Marx as a scholar-in-residence on Feb. 6-7, as she takes us into her own beit midrash, a space
where liturgy, gender, ritual and the Jewish calendar all meet.

Rabbi Marx is the Rabbi Aaron D. Panken Professor of Liturgy at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem. In this conversation, she reflects on the perspectives she brings as a Reform leader in Israel and how prayer, commandedness and community shape Jewish life today.

Q: Your upcoming visit is framed around the idea of a beit midrash. What does that mean to you?
A: This is actually the first time I’ve been invited to frame an entire residency around my own beit midrash, instead of being assigned a single theme like
the High Holy Days or Passover. Your clergy said, “Show us a little of everything you do.”

My academic field is Jewish liturgy, but I also work extensively on gender in Judaism and the Jewish calendar. My most recent book explores the festivals
through time. So the idea became a sort of smorgasbord: a taste of liturgy, gender, ritual and spiritual life. That’s the heart of my beit midrash.

Q: Temple members are eager to learn from someone rooted in Israel during this moment in history. What perspectives do you hope to bring as a voice from Israel?
A: I hope to share the cultural and spiritual aspects of life in Israel, less the politics themselves and more what emerges through the politics. My work with the Israeli Reform movement centers on peace, reconciliation, gender justice and ethnic justice as expressed through liturgy, ritual and worship.

Q: Your Shabbat morning session, L’hitpalel: Prayer Is Dynamic, will focus on new liturgy written since October 7. What prayer responses from this period have moved you most?
A: Everyone wrote prayers—secular people, atheists, people who don’t believe in God at all but still felt compelled to create liturgy. This is new for Israel.

Hundreds of prayers emerged in thefirst weeks alone: petitions, confessions, poems, new piyyutim. Some sounded militaristic, some mournful, some focused on hope. Even the new versions of the Kaddish were incredibly diverse.

Creating new liturgy means pouring contemporary experience into ancient vessels, and what appeared was rich, nuanced and profoundly human.

Q: How do you encourage students and communities to write or adapt prayers that feel authentic yet speak to contemporary realities?
A: I actually recommend recycling and reusing older prayers rather than inventing from scratch. There is tremendous wisdom and emotional weight in prayers our ancestors used in their own moments of crisis. Reworking them creates continuity and gives their words new life.

That said, my Israeli and American students are wonderfully creative. I always encourage them to write, but with awareness of the powerful tradition they’re stepping into.

Q: Your Lunch-and-Learn session is titled Women’s Religiosity in Antiquity (and Now): Not What You Think. Can you offer a small preview?
A: I was part of the feminist Babylonian Talmud commentary project, where each scholar analyzed a tractate to explore women’s voices and portrayals
of femininity. To my surprise, I received tractates dealing with the Temple. Even more surprising was that the separation between men and women and the exclusion of women was not nearly as dramatic as what we see in some Jewish spaces today. While it was not egalitarian in the way Temple Emanu-El is, the rabbis showed real interest in women’s religious experiences, their desire to pray, and their longing to be close to holiness. There are some unexpected insights there, and that’s what I want to explore together.

Q: You’ve written extensively about prayer, ritual and the Jewish calendar. What areas of Jewish practice are you exploring right now?
A: I’m writing a new introduction to Jewish prayer. The classic text we all studied is more than 125 years old, updated, yes, but still rooted in an older era. Liturgy evolves, theology shifts, and our understanding of prayer expands. This new volume will reflect that evolution.

Q: Finally, what do you hope our congregants will take away from spending a weekend in your beit midrash?
A: I want people to remember how rich, profound, creative and vivid our Jewish heritage is and how much power it gives us to make the world better through a Jewish lens.

I also want them to feel the importance of kehillah, not only the local congregation, but the global Jewish community. Strengthening relationships between communities, Israeli, North American and beyond, is essential.

When people tell me afterward that something they learned opened their appetite to study more, that is the greatest success. My syllabi always end with the
same instruction, in Aramaic, zil gmor, “now go and study.” If the weekend inspires that hunger, then we’ve done something meaningful together.

Learn more about Rabbi Marx’ weekend with us and register for events here.

Originally published in the January/February 2026 edition of The Window