Shabbat as a Palace in Time

Event Details

• 📅 October 30, 2026

• 🕖 7:00–9:00 PM

  • Doors open at 6:30 PM

  • Program starts promptly at 7:00 PM

• 📍 Nicholas Martin Hall, Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA

• 🎟️ Free, RSVP Required. Donations encouraged

• 🖼️ Full group exhibition on view in person October 27 - November 8, 2026 and online beginning October 27, 2026

Join us to welcome Shabbat with Shabbat as a Palace in Time, an evening led by Rabbi Xava de Cordova exploring Jewish time: how we mark it, how we inherit it, and how we might carry it forward. The evening is presented as part of 70 Seeds, a group exhibition imagining vibrant, pluralistic Jewish life in the United States in the year 2070, exactly 2,000 years after the fall of the Second Temple.

In his book The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschel (z''l) describes Shabbat as a "palace in time," a sanctuary built with minutes and hours, rather than walls and doors. Surrounded by artwork imagining Jewish life nearly 50 years from now, this evening invites us to step into that palace together and to ask what it might look like in the future.

All are welcome, whatever your relationship to Shabbat, Jewish practice, or Jewish community.

This event is free and open to the public; however, RSVPs are required due to capacity constraints. Donations to support the exhibition and future programming are welcome and appreciated.

Rabbi Xava de Cordova is a disabled, Sefradi, Mizraxi trans woman and co-host of the world's first Queer Talmud podcast, "Xai, how are you?". She is a long-time SVARA-style Talmud learner and SVARA teaching kollel fellow who got her start as a teacher by creating Beit Midrash Behind Bars, an organization that facilitated Jewish learning opportunities for incarcerated people in Washington State. She is also the co-Rosh Yeshiva of Shel Maala, which she co-founded with her incredible co-Rosh, Binya. She lives in Providence, RI, where she regularly produces Jewish ritual theatre (or did, before the pandemic) and does her best to steward the radical tradition she's been blessed to inherit.

The Judeofuturism Project is a multidisciplinary initiative supporting Jewish futures rooted in imagination, resilience, and collective thriving. We ask: What becomes possible beyond survival? How can communities think long-term? And what can Jewish wisdom offer a world in transformation? The Judeofuturism Project believes Jewish communities have always been futures-builders. Our mission is to recover, practice, and amplify that capacity, connecting the people, tools and ideas needed to strengthen our infrastructure of imagination for this moment and beyond