Practicing Joy in Terrible Times
Mi-shenichnas Adar, marbim b’simchah. When the month of Adar begins, one increases in joy.Babylonian Talmud Ta’anit 29a Mitzvah g'dolah l'hiyot b'simchah tamid. It is a great mitzvah to be joyful, always.Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlov, Likutei Moharan II: 24 How do we nurture simchah through spiritual practice – especially in such challenging times, when joy seems hard, maybe even unjust, to access? Nachman describes simchah as emerging from our capacity to develop greater awareness of the deeper truth of our lives, to "reveal" that which previously had been "concealed" from us:At every stage in a person’s spiritual growth, there is an aspect of Torah and mitzvot which is ‘revealed’ to him – a...
A Time to Act (Yitro 5786)
It has always been easy for me to know how old the United States is. I was a “Bicentennial Baby,” born in 1976. Add 200 to my age, and you get the age of the country. With God’s help, I’ll turn 50 in May, and my country, in turn, will be 250 in July. I don’t know about you, but to me it doesn’t feel like a very happy birthday year for the nation. Two and a half centuries ago, Thomas Jefferson and his comrades, however imperfectly, planted into the Western world’s collective political consciousness the ideas of human equality and government by the consent of the governed. (As David Graeber and David Wengrow demonstrate in their wonderful The Dawn of Everything, Jefferson and his European...
A Conversation with Rabbi Michael Strassfeld
We are grateful to Best-Selling Author, Rabbi Michael Strassfeld, for speaking with IJS President & CEO, Rabbi Josh Feigelson! Please enjoy the conversation recording below. Rabbi Michael Strassfeld is one of the editors of the Jewish Catalog (1973), a guide to do-it-yourself Judaism that sold over 300,000 copies. He edited the Second and Third Jewish Catalogs (1975,1979),...
A Conversation with Yossi Klein-Halevi
We are grateful to Award-Winning Journalist & Best-Selling Author, Yossi Klein-Halevi, for speaking with IJS President & CEO, Rabbi Josh Feigelson! Please enjoy the conversation recording below. In his decades of writing from and about Israel, New York Times bestselling author Yossi Klein-Halevi has earned a reputation as a leading interpreter of contemporary Israel and...
Going on offense: Why we ran an ad for Judaism during an NFL game
IJS explains why teaching Jewish mindfulness wasn’t enough—and why publicly sharing Judaism’s depth became essential.
Josh’s Book Launch: Eternal Questions
Rabbi Josh Feigelson's book launch and conversation with Abigail Pogrebin took place on Wednesday, October 26, 2022. The recording of the event is now available below. Feel free to share with friends and family who may be interested. We hope you find this to be a meaningful discussion. Josh's book, Eternal Questions, is now available for purchase. Rabbi Josh Feigelson is the...
Introducing IJS’s First Faculty Fellow: Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife
IJS is delighted to announce that Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife has joined its faculty as a Faculty Fellow. The fellowship, which runs from 2022-24, is the first of its kind at the Institute. It is designed to identify and nurture exceptional spiritual leaders who can contribute new skills and perspective to IJS’s teaching and programs, while also developing greater expertise in Jewish...
A Conversation with Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
We are grateful to Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg for speaking with us about Repentance and Repair! Please enjoy the conversation recording below. Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg is an award-winning author and serves as Scholar in Residence at the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW). She was named by Newsweek as a “rabbi to watch,” as a “faith leader to watch” by the Center for American Progress,...
![Richard Schwartz: “To be a presence that can possibly bring some healing [is] an incredible gift.”](https://www.jewishspirituality.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Richard-400x250.png)
Richard Schwartz: “To be a presence that can possibly bring some healing [is] an incredible gift.”
Our recent Evening of Gratitude was a valuable opportunity to recognize Jewish spiritual leaders of all kinds and their incredible impact on the people and communities they serve. We are so grateful for all they bring to our world, and so proud to be part of their stories. In one of the evening’s spotlights, IJS alum Cantor Richard Schwartz shared how pastoral care, mindfulness...
Alison Kur: “Spirituality is about nurturing my soul and giving my soul to others”
Hundreds of IJS supporters joined us on Tuesday, June 7, 2022 for our Evening of Gratitude, honoring and thanking Jewish spiritual leaders. We are eager to share one of the highlights of the celebration, and we hope that you will consider making a donation to support our work. Alison Kur, Executive Director of Jewish Living at Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley, MA, was one of the...
Of Black Swans and Sabbatical Years
If you haven’t seen it yet, take a minute to watch the finish from this year’s Kentucky Derby. It’s a sight to behold.The two leading horses are racing neck-and-neck (literally), jockeying for position (again, literally), as they make the final turn of the one-and-a-quarter-mile track at Churchill Downs. Slowly and then suddenly, Rich Strike, a horse no one even expected to be in the...
A Conversation with Joy Ladin, PhD and Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler
We are grateful to Joy Ladin, PhD and Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler for sharing their insights with us! Please enjoy the conversation recording below. Joy Ladin, PhD is a teacher, widely published essayist and poet, literary scholar, and nationally known speaker on transgender issues. She is the author of twelve books, including 2021 National Jewish Book Award winner, The Book of Anna,...
Purim and the Pursuit of Wisdom
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of...
A Conversation with Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg
We are grateful to Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg for sharing his wisdom with us. Please enjoy the conversation recording below. Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg is one of the most influential Jewish thinkers and institution-builders of our time. Currently president of the J.J. Greenberg Institute for the Advancement of Jewish Life (JJGI) and Senior Scholar in Residence at Hadar, Rabbi...
Feel your breath: Mindfulness moving into the Jewish mainstream
The Institute for Jewish Spirituality is on the leading edge of spreading the Jewish gospel of meditation, as COVID has sparked a boom in the practice.
A Reflection on Jewish Mindfulness and Habits of the Heart
It often feels these days that we’re living through a Great Unraveling. Institutions, those deposits of trust that enable things to be—or at least seem to be—settled, are coming apart. News media, public health, elections, representative government, the weather, the forests, the shoreline, truth, language itself: In so many places, things I took to be more or less stable are...
How Spiritual Practices Impacted my Bearing Witness Outside the Glynn County, GA Courthouse
On Thursday November 18, 2021 I traveled to Brunswick, GA along with eleven other Jewish clergy to bear witness and offer support to the Black pastors, the community and family members gathering at the Glynn County courthouse during the trial for the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. Arbery, 25, was shot while going for a run in a suburban neighborhood. The chase and shooting were caught on...
Resilient Writers Fellowship Feature Articles
I will pour out My spirit on all flesh Your children shall prophesy Your old shall dream dreams And your youth shall see visions. These words from the prophet Joel (made even more famous by Debbie Friedman) are a perfect introduction to the essays in the enclosed booklet, which are the product of the Resilient Writers Fellowship, a joint project of IJS and New Voices Magazine. Over...
To Prevent a Crisis of Clergy Burnout, Help Them Cultivate Their Inner Lives
As a spate of recent articles have proclaimed, clergy face a crisis. In his recent piece in eJewishPhilanthropy, Rabbi Lewis Kamrass, President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), warned of the real possibility of an exodus of rabbis from congregational life, due to the extreme additional emotional and professional burdens imposed upon them by the pandemic. He urges...
A Conversation with Dr. Lisa Miller
We are grateful to Dr. Lisa Miller for joining us on Tuesday, October 5, 2021 for a special evening.In conversation with Rabbi Josh Feigelson, Dr. Miller shared her insights and research on the new science of spirituality. Lisa Miller, PhD, is a professor in the Clinical Psychology Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is the Founder and Director of the Spirituality...