Being a Blessing (Naso 5786)
While the Priestly Blessing is a central ritual at my family’s Shabbat table, that hasn’t always been the case. For whatever reason, it wasn’t part of my parents’ repertoire when I was growing up. That changed when, at age 12, I attended the bat mitzvah of a family friend and saw her parents place their hands on her head and recite the words. I told my folks, “I’d like us to do that.” Soon thereafter, my dad started blessing my brothers and me. (For whatever reason, my mom left it to him to do.) In both the relationship with my father and my relationship with my children, I have experienced real power in this ritual. Parent-child relationships aren’t easy, and Friday afternoons can be...
Book Talk with Rabbi Caryn Aviv
We are grateful to Rabbi Caryn Aviv for speaking to us about her new book, Unlearning Jewish Anxiety: How to Live with More Joy and Less Suffering. Please enjoy the conversation recording below.Rabbi Caryn Aviv (she/her/hers) serves as Rabbinic and Program Director at Judaism Your Way, as well as Director of Studies at ALEPH. Caryn loves to create and facilitate transformative Jewish experiences that spark joy and meaning for Jews and loved ones. Prior to becoming a rabbi in 2020, Caryn earned a PhD in sociology from Loyola University Chicago in 2002. She taught, mentored students, and published research in Jewish Studies and sociology at University of Colorado at Boulder and the...
IJS Welcomes Michal Fox Smart as Chief Program Officer
The Institute for Jewish Spirituality announced today that Michal Fox Smart will become the organization’s first Chief Program Officer effective July 1. She will serve as the leader of the program team, overseeing the Institute’s faculty and program staff and coordinating the work of its rich roster of instructors, and will be responsible for developing and delivering all of IJS’s programmatic...
IJS Executive Director Josh Feigelson’s Conversation with Author Sarah Hurwitz
From 2009 to 2017, Sarah Hurwitz served as a White House speechwriter, first as a senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama and then as head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama. Prior to serving in the Obama Administration, Sarah was chief speechwriter for Hillary Clinton on her 2008 presidential campaign. Sarah is the author of Here All Along: Finding Meaning,...
Mindfulness Practice: An Ark in the Storm
In Genesis, God instructs Noah to build an ark to protect his family and two of each species on earth from the floodwaters that God will bring. “Make yourself an ark of gopher wood: make it an ark with compartments and cover it inside and out with pitch” (Genesis 6:14). The implication is clear: if the ark is to be a true refuge from the coming floods, Noah must pay close attention...
What’s Jewish about mindfulness?
An IJS-informed approach shows how mindfulness and Jewish wisdom strengthen connection, purpose, and leadership.
Living and Leading with Courage, Resilience, and Sacred Purpose
Dear friends and colleagues,When I started in my position just a month and a half ago, the world was a different place. My big ambition for my first year was to lead us through a strategic planning and business modeling process that would result in a rearticulated vision, mission, and strategy with a multi-year business plan. My assumption was that we would secure new funding for...
Intentional Communities
The phrase "community of practice" is one of those bandied-about terms that seems particularly suited to Jewish spiritual groups: Community and practice - how obvious and how obviously beneficial! And yet, it's also not so simple. Just because you happen to share a profession, a craft or a practice with a group of other people doesn't mean that the group will in fact be supportive or a good...
Rage and Love: Reaching Out
Last week we offered a meditation retreat for activists from across the country, thanks to a grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation in memory of Rabbi Rachel Cowan. At the end of a few days of cultivating a loving heart through meditation, prayer and silence, the participants shared their thoughts and experiences of connecting contemplative practice with their work as activists. Several of...
Hey Big Talkers: Shhh
We Jews are known for being big talkers. We are stereotypically a people of a lot of words, of arguments, of big ideas, of strong opinions. I remember once speaking to a Catholic boys’ school in Missouri. The first kid raised his hand and said, to his teacher’s mortification, “Our science teacher is Jewish and she talks fast, too. Do all Jews talk fast?” (I quickly said, “Yes!”) It’s not...
Facing Our Vulnerability
In our people’s mythic calendar, this is the time of year that we are journeying from the Red Sea to Sinai, from Passover to Shavuot. For me the annual pilgrimage started, as it does most years, when I made the journey to my parents’ home for Passover. And as usual, each time I boarded the plane, coming and going, I whispered the traveler’s prayer to myself. I love tefillat haderekh, the...
A Year of Learning
Last week we celebrated a special anniversary: it has been one year since my husband and I became foster parents to a wonderful 18-year-old refugee from West Africa. It has been a year of great blessing and joy and also of tremendous learning, as you can imagine, given that this is our first time parenting and we jumped right into teenagerhood – not to mention all kinds of cultural differences....
Institute for Jewish Spirituality and Nathan Cummings Foundation Announce New Scholarship Fund to Honor the Legacy of Rabbi Rachel Cowan
The Rachel Cowan Scholarship Fund will provide greater access for activists and traditionally marginalized Jews to IJS's contemplative retreats and programs. The Institute for Jewish Spirituality (IJS) has created the Rachel Cowan Scholarship Fund to celebrate the legacy of Rabbi Rachel Cowan, who passed away last year. The fund will focus on bringing more activists and underrepresented...
Where It All Begins
This month begins IJS’s 20th anniversary year! I was not personally present at the very beginning in 1999 when Rachel Cowan (z”l) and Nancy Flam brought together an extraordinary group of spiritual teachers and seekers in a process of sharing and learning that became the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. So much has changed and evolved since then. But one thing that has not changed has been the...
Sweetening the Root
The end of the year is often a time for looking back, a kind of collective secular cheshbon hanefesh: an accounting of what has transpired over the year. In addition to the list of top movies and songs, we can take a sober look at what were the big news stories, who passed from this world, where we are as a community, as a culture, as a planet, compared to a year ago. It is easy to feel...
Loved, Clear, Courageous
Hanukkah is upon us and with it the aptness of all the metaphors of bringing light into the darkness. A less examined theme of the holiday, however, at least in many spiritual circles, is holy boldness - the decisive action that the Macabees took in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds that enabled them to defeat the wicked government that vastly outweighed them. We tend to shy away from...
Threefold Path of Action
Even before the horrific massacre at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh this past Shabbat, it was easy to feel overwhelmed by the state of the world. The forces at play are so huge and the stakes are so high. How do we muster the courage to act? How do we even discern what actions to take? Following the teaching of Joanna Macy, we might consider three different paths: holding and taking care...
Rachel’s Legacy of Connection
It is hard to believe that we are almost at the shloshim, the 30-day initial mourning period, for Rachel Cowan, who peacefully left this world at the end of August. For me, it has been a month of deep sadness and a sense of confusion: even though we all knew this day would come, how can it be that Rachel is no longer among us with her warm laugh, her compassionate ear, her wise teachings?...
Re-Committing to Intention
In just two short weeks, the High Holy Days will be upon us: a new year, a new beginning, a new opportunity to live our lives a little more in alignment. At first glance it may seem a little odd that Rosh Hashanah is also known as Yom Hazikaron, the Day of Remembrance. If we are setting our sights forward and reconnecting to the possibility that in every moment we are recreated as a new...
Finding Curiosity
Sometimes hitlamdut, cultivating a lens of openness and curiosity, is simple and inspiring. It is reawakening a childlike wonder that brings joy and gratitude and a sense of belonging to this life. That is not my experience these days. These days I am keenly aware of the voice inside that says, “We’ve seen this before and we know how it is going to unfold.” This voice looks back at history, at...