Amukah Alumni Program - Institute for Jewish Spirituality.

Amukah: Deepening our Practice is a new, cohort-based program exclusively for alumni of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality’s Kivvun program. The inaugural cohort of Amukah (Hebrew for “deep”) will consist of an opening retreat featuring guest scholar Dr. Melila Hellner-Eshed at the Brandeis-Bardin Campus of American Jewish University outside of LA in January 2020, six months of supported Jewish contemplative spiritual practice, and a concluding retreat at Trinity Retreat Center in West Cornwall, CT in June 2020.

Amukah aims to create a supportive, intimate community in which participants deepen the Jewish spiritual practice they developed in their IJS Kivvun experience, growing in wisdom through a shared commitment to engaging in meditation, prayer, text study, and middot practice. In the interim period between retreats, participants will engage in daily practice, weekly chevruta study, and monthly reflection sessions with IJS faculty. Each cohort of Amukah will be based on the teaching of a scholar of Jewish spiritual thought and practice.

Each cohort of Amukah will be open to all Kivvun alumni, and will be based on the teaching of a scholar of Jewish spiritual thought and practice.

Register Now

Program Details

The Amukah program consists of two retreats and six months of interim study.

Retreat Dates

Opening retreat, featuring guest scholar Dr. Melila Hellner-Eshed
Thursday, January 23 through Sunday, January 26, 2020
Brandeis-Bardin campus, American Jewish University, Simi Valley CA
IJS staff: Rabbi Sam Feinsmith and Rabbi Marc Margolius

Closing retreat
Wednesday, June 17 through Sunday, June 21, 2020
Trinity Retreat Center, West Cornwall CT
IJS staff: Rabbi Sam Feinsmith and Rabbi Marc Margolius

All retreat facilities are kosher, under the supervision
of IJS staff or local mashgichim.

Tuition

two retreats and six-month interim learning period:

$5,000

Room and Board

two retreats

$1,200

FACULTY

The program is taught by IJS faculty members: Rabbis Sam Feinsmith and Marc Margolius. They will be joined at the opening retreat in January by Dr. Melila Hellner-Eshed, research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, and professor of Jewish mysticism and Zohar at Hebrew University. She is author of “And a River Flows from Eden:” On the Language of Mystical Experience in the Zohar, (Stanford University Press, 2009), and active in Sulha, a project for reconciliation between Israeli Jews and Palestinians.