Starting to think about your summer plans? Here are two suggestions:

National Havurah Committee Summer Institute
If you were thinking about submitting a course proposal to teach during this summer’s Institute, they are due tomorrow (11/26). You get to attend the Institute for free as a teacher, minus your NHC membership dues ($40). If you are an artist, applications to be one of two Poretsky Artists in Residence are due December 4. Stay tuned for Everett Fellowship information once it becomes available later in the winter, allowing 20s and 30s Jewish leaders to attend for majorly discounted cost. August 11-17, 2008 at Franklin Pierce College, Rindge NH.

Yeshivat Hadar
If you want to spend some time in serious text and spiritual study this summer, there’s no place better in my opinion than Yeshivat Hadar. They’ve just opened application for this coming summer. Now entering its second year, the program is from June 1 – July 26, 2008 and boasts some of the greatest young minds of the traditional egalitarian world — Shoshana Cohen, Rabbi Shai Held, Rabbi Amy Kalmanofsky, Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, Sara Labaton, and Rabbi Ethan Tucker. Courses ranges from Talmud to Rashi to Halachah to Midrash, liturgy skills to Chassidut. Participants are subsidized, so you could actually afford to do it. This is the perfect program if you’re looking to finally make some headway in your text skills, to skip a preparatory year of rabbinical school or prepare for PhD work that involves Jewish texts, or simply to spend eight weeks for their own sake immersed in study. They are having an intro evening of learning in New York City on January 16, 7-9 pm, at West End Synagogue, 190 Amsterdam Ave, which will be the site of the program.