Shabbat mornings at Congregation Beth Hatikvah in Chatham have always included adult education. The regular study group has examined texts going all the way back to the Talmud.

Most recently they have been tackling one of Judaism’s great dissenters: 17th-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza.

The provocative choice is the result of the Reconstructionist synagogue’s participation in One Book, One Congregation, a program of the New York-based Nextbook, a nonprofit that promotes Jewish arts and literature.

Armed with Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity by Rebecca Goldstein, published by Nextbook in partnership with Schocken Books, and study guides prepared by the organization, participants in the Shabbat study group are working through a chapter a week.

“Our biggest disappointment is that our time is too short — just one hour,” said participant Mike Hyman of Madison.

Beth Hatikvah joins Congregation Beth Ahm of West Essex, a Conservative synagogue in Verona, and 28 congregations nationwide that are participating in the program.

Inspiration for the program came from One Book-One City, a project of the American Library Association that encourages municipalities to pick a book and create opportunities for a broad spectrum of citizens to read and discuss it.

“We have run programs with the ALA, and we were intrigued by One Book-One City,” said Nextbook executive director Julie Sandorf. “We asked, ‘Could we adapt the program to help build community and spiritual life at synagogues?’”

Nextbook’s version promotes the titles in its own “Jewish Encounters” series of short biographies of Jewish figures and book-length essays on Jewish thought.

Not every book is successful at every congregation. According to Beth Ahm’s Rabbi Aaron Kriegel, “We swallowed hard after reading The Life of David” — a biography of the biblical David by Robert Pinsky — “but decided to continue with the series anyway.”

Nextbook hoped to attract 10 synagogues the first year and is now up to 30. The only requirement to participate is to place an order of at least 20 copies of any one book. According to Sandorf, 30 percent of participating synagogues have reordered new books.

While Nextbook’s idea is for synagogues to use the book as a catalyst for synagogue-wide programming and discussion, neither of the two local synagogues has embraced that format, both opting instead for a smaller book-group format.

Other synagogues, however, have created broader programs for the larger synagogue community. Temple Emanu-El in New York is devoting a year to a biography of Maimonides by Sherwin Nuland, with lectures on related topics and a tzedaka day that draws on Maimonides’ principles of charitable giving.

A Chicago-area synagogue launched its Nextbook program on Shavuot with traditional late-night study sessions devoted to the Spinoza biography.

Although Kriegel said Beth Ahm would maintain its current format, Hyman said the Beth Hatikvah participants are open to trying new things, but that the current structure “is a good place to start.”

The Beth Hatikvah group is now preparing to start its second book, the King David biography, while Beth Ahm will read Emma Lazarus by Princeton University English professor Esther Schor, and then playwright David Mamet’s The Wicked Son, an analysis of anti-Semitism.