Being With What Is
A Silent Jewish Mindfulness Retreat for Young Adults
Tuesday, August 13 – Sunday, August 18, 2024
Wisdom House, Litchfield CT
We are excited to offer our first in-depth retreat specifically designed for young adults! This program invites you to slow down, connect with yourself and others, and drop into what matters most amidst the challenges of daily life and the ongoing difficulties we have been facing in the wake of the tumultuous events of this past year.
Utilizing the gifts of mindfulness, embodiment, song, prayer, and a variety of Jewish spiritual teachings, you will:
-
-
-
- Learn tools and practices to reconnect with your innate wisdom and authenticity.
- Nurture your capacity for resilience, compassion, and well-being.
- Cultivate insight and wise action in response to the challenges of our world.
- Refresh and renew your body, heart, mind and soul.
-
-
Falling between the Jewish holidays of Tisha B’av, a day of mourning, and Tu B’av, a day of celebrating love, our retreat is a sacred space to open our hearts to grief, love, and everything in between.
This retreat will be held mostly in social silence. All folks in their 20’s and 30’s are welcome. No experience with mindfulness and/or Judaism is necessary; this retreat is open to beginner and advanced practitioners alike.
Pricing
Private room with private ensuite bath: $1,200
Private room with shared hall bath: $950
Shared double room with shared hall bath: $750
Early Bird Special:
Register by Friday, June 21 and Save $50!
Retreat Costs and Financial Support
We understand that the costs for a retreat can be prohibitive. To help with this, we are offering three payment options for this retreat. Level 1 covers the cost of your participation.
If you need additional financial assistance, please request support using this form. Please fill out the form before registering for the retreat. We will review your request promptly and be in touch with you about the level of support we are able to provide and how to register.
If you are a college student, we ask that you first be in touch with your school’s Hillel to inquire about funding for summer programs.
Participants should plan to arrive at Wisdom House between 3:00 – 5:00 PM ET on Tuesday, August 13 to register and get settled. The retreat will begin with dinner at 5:30 PM and an opening session at 6:30 PM.
The retreat will end at 12 noon on Sunday, August 18. Participants are welcome to stay through lunch.
Retreat Faculty
Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife
IJS Faculty Fellow
Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife sprinkles sparkles, disrupts expectations, and offers blessings wherever she goes. She serves as Founding Kohenet of Kesher Pittsburgh, Program Director for Beloved Garden, inaugural Faculty Fellow with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality and also enjoys working with the Jewish Learning Collaborative. Additionally, she delights in serving as a shlichat tzibbur, life spiral ceremony/ritual creatrix, teacher, facilitator, liturgist and songstress. Her work in these realms is informed by her lived experience as a queer, bi-racial, Jewish person, her belief that Book, Body and Earth are equal sources of wisdom, the quandaries she has encountered as a scholar of the Orphan Wisdom School, and her deep commitment to a thriving, liberatory Jewish future. Keshira received Kohenet smicha in 2017 and earned her BS 2000 and MS 2001 at Carnegie Mellon University. After many years of traveling and living in Australia, in 2018, she and her beloved returned home to Osage and Haudenosaunee land, also called Pittsburgh, PA.
Rebecca Schisler
Core Faculty Member
Rebecca is a meditation teacher, artist, and Jewish educator. A devoted contemplative practitioner, she has led groups and taught classes and retreats with Or HaLev, Awakened Heart Project, Orot, Wilderness Torah, Pardes, and Stanford School of Medicine. She was previously the Director of Student Health & Well-being at Stanford University’s Hillel, and co-authored the Mahloket Matters Schools Curriculum with the Pardes Center for Jewish Educators. A student rabbi at ALEPH, Rebecca is passionate about integrating ancestral wisdom traditions with innovative approaches to personal and collective healing and liberation. She teaches Jewish spirituality as an embodied, holistic, and accessible path, with relevant and timely wisdom for all.
Yael Shy
CEO of Mindfulness Consulting, LLC
Yael Shy is the CEO of Mindfulness Consulting, LLC, where she teaches and consults on mindfulness for universities, corporations, and private clients around the world. She is the author of the award-winning book, What Now? Meditation for Your Twenties and Beyond (Parallax, 2017), and the founder of Mindful NYU, the largest campus-based mindfulness initiative in the US. Yael is a graduate of the IJS Jewish Mindfulness Teacher Training Certification and has over a decade of teaching and consulting experience and 20 years of meditation practice experience. She is adjunct faculty at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, Or HaLev, as well as at New York University. She has been featured on Good Morning America, CBS, Fox 5 News, and in Time Magazine and the Harvard Business Review. Connect with Yael at yaelshy.com and yaelshy1 on Instagram.
Jes Heppler
Retreat Manager and Assistant Teacher
Jes is a writer, researcher, meditation teacher, and writing doula. As a PhD Candidate in Philosophy at UC Berkeley, they are writing a dissertation on gut feelings and the body. During Jes’ doctoral studies, their long-standing philosophical interests in perception, knowledge, and emotion brought Jes to explore these topics through Jewish and contemplative practices. Since then, they founded and led the Queer Sit Collective in Boston, MA, and have taught Jewish meditation in Paris, France for the Radical Mitzva community. As a writer, practitioner, and teacher, Jes is passionate about exploring the ineffable through mindfulness, felt sense, and language. They’re currently a student in the Somatic Experiencing Practitioner Training and the Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training through the Institute for Jewish Spirituality and Or HaLev.
