Registration Now Open
Learn The Jewish Spiritual Practice
That Helps You Show Up More Often as Your “Best Self”
In challenging times like these—marked by political turbulence, rising antisemitism, war, and the climate crisis—we all can be reactive and defensive rather than our best selves. Flooded by our emotions, too often we may regret our words and actions, wishing we might have paused and responded more wisely.
Judaism has a spiritual practice specifically for times like these: tikkun middot, an ancient Jewish practice for developing desirable character traits and aligning our actions with our most deeply held values. Tikkun middot practice integrates basic principles of Jewish mindfulness with close attention to essential character or “soul” traits like loving connection, humility, gratitude, and the discipline to set wise boundaries. Each of us possesses these traits, but our innate spiritual and ethical qualities can become blocked, causing us to behave in ways that miss the mark.
The Institute for Jewish Spirituality invites you to join Awareness in Action: Cultivating Character through Mindfulness and Middot, a self-paced online course to help you uncover your authentic best self and be the person you wish to be.
In this course, you’ll learn skills that can be applied in both the small and large actions of daily life: in difficult conversations, in interactions with family and friends, in traffic, and in meetings—whenever life is particularly challenging. You’ll learn to access and practice eight core character or “soul” traits (middot), each of which builds upon and integrates those that precede it:
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- Loving connection (chesed)
- Setting wise boundaries for yourself and others (gevurah)
- A balanced self – taking up appropriate space and time (anavah)
- Energetic response – so you can get started and keep going (zerizut)
- Gratitude (hodayah)
- Righteousness – developing your capacity to do what is appropriate and just (tzedek)
- Mindful speech (sh’mirat hadibbur)
- Trustworthiness (emunah)
Practice your soul traits to bring mindfulness practice more deeply into your life.
Expert instructors Rabbi Marc Margolius and Rabbi Lisa Goldstein will guide you each step of the way to establish a tikkun middot practice that can support you in:
- Growing in self-awareness and gaining better insight into your deeper motivations and habitual patterns
- Becoming less reactive and more responsive—better able to access the innate wisdom in your body, mind, and soul
- Developing the freedom to choose how you want to act
- Experiencing Jewish spiritual practice as a path to personal transformation.
Here’s what participants have told us about the difference this course made in their lives
“I’ve heard the phrase, “living an examined life”, many times. But not until I began to participate in tikkun middot practice with IJS did I truly recognize the wisdom of this worldview, and gain the tools to put it into action. Now I am constantly surprised by how often I notice situations arising in which I apply middot to my experiences and responses. And this knowledge has a cumulative effect: the more middot I internalize, the more it enriches my life — personally, professionally, and communally.”
“Tikkun middot practice weaves Jewish wisdom through my day to day life, helping me meet situations that I used to find baffling and confusing. It may sound like hyperbole, but now that I’ve been practicing regularly, I experience miracles everywhere. Consistently, no matter what presents as a challenge in my life — from the simplest irritants to the most triggering situations — this practice helps me regulate my internal chaos and remember that my awareness is within me, a light that never goes out.”
Awareness in Action
A Session-by-Session Course Overview
Here’s a closer look at everything you’ll cover:
Every module is between 30 and 45 minutes in length, and includes:
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- Video teachings and guided “real life” scenarios with Rabbi Marc Margolius, Rabbi Tamara Cohen, Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife, and Rabbi Aaron Weininger.
- A teaching from a related Jewish text with Rabbi Lisa Goldstein
- A professionally recorded chant and sample “focus phrases” (a reminder to practice during the day)
- A supplemental handout with reflection and journaling questions
Module One
Loving Connection: Chesed
Open up to loving connection, especially in challenging situations.
Module Two
Setting wise boundaries: Gevurah
Being loving and generous—but not to the extent you are doing a disservice to family, friends, colleagues, or yourself.
Module Three
Centering in a balanced self: Avanah
Taking up the right amount of space in the world—neither too much nor too little.
Module Four
Channeling an energetic response: Zerizut
Accessing the energy you need to either get going—or keep going.
Module Five
Experiencing gratitude: Hodayah
Accepting life on its own terms and rejoicing about what is true at this moment, just as it is.
Module Six
Letting Righteousness Flow: Tzedek
Developing your capacity to do what is right and just—with compassion opening new channels through which righteousness can flow.
Module Seven
Mindful speech: Sh’mirat Hadibbur
Applying mindfulness to all of your communications so that they reflect your best self.
Module Eight
Generating Trustworthiness: Emunah
Consistently showing-up for yourself and others.
Once you have finished the eight modules you may notice . . .
- Some of the eight traits (middot) have been easier for you to incorporate into your life than others. There is plenty of time to go back and focus on the ones you found more challenging. In fact, we encourage going back through all eight.
- You are learning which support tools are most helpful for you… is it humming a chant throughout your day; posting a “focus phrase” on your refrigerator or laptop screen; and/or checking-in with a practice partner three times per week.
- You’re becoming more skilled at noticing when you are about to go down a habitual path that is out of alignment with how you want to be in the world—and sometimes doing something different. (It takes practice!)
- You’re increasingly able to meet others (and yourself) with a deeper quality of love, compassion and acceptance.
Course Materials and Resources
This course is appropriate for beginners as well as more experienced meditators and mindfulness practitioners. While the concepts and practices are framed in Jewish terms, no prior Judaic knowledge is assumed or necessary.
When you register, you’ll get access to everything you need to take full advantage of the self-paced course, including:
- Eight sets of self-paced video teaching sessions – that you can access anywhere, anytime from your computer or mobile device.
- Eight guided “Mindful Life” practice scenarios – designed to help you integrate the course teachings into your everyday life.
- Eight teachings from Jewish texts – that will provide a Jewish frame and additional insights into the character trait (middah).
- Eight downloadable chants – one for each module, professionally recorded by Cantor Julia Cadrain with Elana Arian or Rabbi Sam Feinsmith, to help you integrate the character trait (middah) into your life through music.
- Downloadable handouts for each module – so you can reference these teachings anytime.
- Additional resources for each middah, including poems and playlists.
- A personal online journal – your own personal space to record your reflections.
- Online study/practice partners – so you can share your experience with like-minded others on a similar path.
Awareness in Action
IJS is pleased to offer this course at three tuition levels.
We encourage you to pay at the highest level you can, which will enable more students to participate.
Abundance Level
$399
Basic Level
$299
Supported Level
$149
Meet the course instructors:
Rabbi Marc Margolius
Rabbi Marc Margolius directs programming for lay leaders and alumni of the IJS clergy leadership training program, as well as the Tikkun Middot Project, which integrates Jewish mindfulness with middot (character trait) practice. He hosts IJS’s daily mindfulness meditation sessions and teaches an online program, Awareness in Action: Cultivating Character through Mindfulness and Middot. Previously, Marc served as rabbi at West End Synagogue in Manhattan.
Rabbi Lisa Goldstein
Lisa is a master teacher of Jewish-based mindfulness practices. She first came to IJS as a participant in the rabbinic leadership program and meditation teacher training. She served as the Executive Director of IJS, where, in addition to management responsibilities, she also taught at retreats and meditation programs. Educated at Brown University and Hebrew Union College, she previously served as the director of Hillel of San Diego, where she was recognized as an “Exemplar of Excellence.” Lisa She lives in New York City with her husband and foster son.
Rabbi Tamara Cohen
Rabbi Tamara Cohen is an educator and liturgist who has been using innovative ritual and feminist creative practice to bring Jews and their fellow travelers into deeper connection with themselves, their communities, Judaism and the Sacred, for over twenty-five years. As a partnered queer white anti-racist parent of two boys and a senior leader at Moving Traditions, a national organization that works to support the thriving of Jewish adolescents and their families, she brings a keen awareness of the spiritual challenges and blessings of daily life for people who care for others within their own families while also being engaged in and committed to the need for the larger systemic changes that would make care and repair easier to center and access. Tamara’s writing can be found in The Journey Continues: The Ma’yan Feminist Haggadah, Siddur Lev Shalem and ritualwell.org. She is blessed to live with her family at the edge of Carpenter’s Woods in Philadelphia.
Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife
Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife (she/they pronouns) sprinkles sparkles, disrupts expectations, and offers blessings wherever she goes. She serves as Oreget Kehilah (Executive Director) of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, Founding Kohenet of Kesher Pittsburgh and Program Director of the ALEPH Kesher Fellowship and also enjoys working with Keshet and Beloved Builders. Additionally, she delights in serving as a davennatrix (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 Woman, her belief that Book, Body and Earth are equal sources of wisdom, and the quandries she encounters as a scholar of the Orphan Wisdom School. 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, she and her beloved once again make their home on Osage and Haudenosaunee land, also called Pittsburgh, PA.
Rabbi Aaron Weininger
Rabbi Aaron Weininger joined Adath Jeshurun Congregation in 2012, upon receiving rabbinic ordination and an MA in Hebrew Letters from the Jewish Theological Seminary. He holds the Berman Family Chair in Jewish Learning. Aaron earned his BA at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2007 he became the first openly gay person admitted to rabbinical school in the Conservative movement of Judaism. That experience taught him the power of listening at the margins rather than pulling people into whatever the center is at that moment, and he is attuned to the spark each person brings to Torah, prayer, and acts of kindness in the warmth of community.
Meet the musicians and vocalists:
Elana Arian
Musician and Vocalist
Cantor Julia Cadrain
Vocalist
Rabbi Sam Feinsmith
Musician and Vocalist