Ohev Sholom-The National Synagogue is offering a discussion series Sunday through Thursday that probes these connections during the week leading up to Tisha B'Av, a fast day observed on Aug. 3 that marks the destruction of the First and Second Temples.

With "Jewish Approaches to Life's Joys and Sorrows," the Women's Beit Midrash of the Orthodox District shul is partnering with Yeshiva University, which supplied speakers for the series.

Morning sessions from 9:30 to 11, for which babysitting is available by reservation, are for women only, but evening sessions, held 8-9:30, are open to all.

"It's a very comfortable, nonintimidating atmosphere and there's a certain camaraderie that develops," said Women's Beit Midrash director Aliza Sperling, noting the bifurcated program. "Men have been begging us to open some of our classes so they can come and learn in the same way."

The ongoing Beit Midrash has met on Tuesday nights since last November, drawing an average of 20 women ranging in age from 18 to about 75, Sperling said. Scholars from around the area lead the group in discussions based on Jewish texts.

"Nobody should feel like they can't come because they don't have the Hebrew language skills," Sperling said, noting the provision of sources in both English and Hebrew.

Twotime cancer survivor Yael Stern Joseph kicks off the series with an evening discussion of the "Six Flags of Life: Rollercoaster of Jewish Joy and Sorrow."

People who have suffered "have something to offer the Jewish community," said Joseph, reached by phone at her home in Lawrence, N.Y.

The author of Am I My Mother's Daughter? A Search for Identity (Devora Publishing Co., 2005), Joseph has concluded that "my purpose in this world is to teach others to survive."

Capping the series on the evening of Aug. 3, at the close of Tisha B'Av, is "Megillat Eicha: Psychological Underpinnings, Theological Overtones," facilitated by Shira Weiss.

Weiss, director of admissions and Tanach, Jewish history and philosophy faculty member at Frisch School in Paramus, N.J., sees hints of the grieving process as understood by psychologists ‹ denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance ‹ in the words of Ecclesiastes.

"Younger students sometimes have a hard time relating to the texts, so I look for the universal messages," said Weiss, also an adjunct professor at Stern College for Women.

Elana Stein, a senior fellow at the Stern Graduate Program in Advanced Talmudic Studies and a doctoral candidate in religion at Columbia University, will lead a Monday evening session on "Tisha B'Av and Yom Kippur: 2 Sides of the Same Coin?"

Stein compares the two fast days to "fraternal twins with similar features" in that Jews traditionally abjure not only eating and drinking, but intimate relations, bathing, perfuming and leather shoes.

"They each present models of asceticism," said Stein, who plans to draw on insights from Leviticus, the Talmud and Maimonides for her session.

District rheumatologist Jane Gilbert has taken part in the Women's Beit Midrash since its inception last fall.

"It's taught me you have to look beyond the surface" of Jewish sources, Gilbert said. ‹ Paula Amann