Refuge in the Ark: A Jewish Mindfulness Retreat

Refuge in the Ark: A Jewish Mindfulness Retreat

Dec 10, 2025

Refuge in the Ark:

A Jewish Mindfulness Retreat

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When the seas of our lives are especially chaotic, it can be healthy to take temporary refuge in a sheltered place — like Noah did in the biblical ark. Once removed from the storm, we can connect deeply with a sense of newness and hope, feeling restored and strengthened. After this kind of retreat, we’re able to return to our lives with greater clarity and wisdom to respond to the realities of the world around us.

The IJS community will create our own ark of calm connection this fall,

and we hope you will join us.

This mostly silent, Jewish mindfulness meditation retreat will be at the serene Garrison Institute in Garrison, NY. Our retreat will be led by IJS faculty and other experienced, beloved instructors. Over five days, we will focus on deepening our practice through silent meditation enhanced with Jewish teachings, meditation instructions, mindful prayer, and yoga/embodied practice. We will use silence as a tool to deepen our sense of calm, safety, and spiritual development, following Rav Shimon Ben Gamliel’s teaching: “I have found nothing better for a person than silence” (Pirkei Avot 1:17).

Mornings on retreat will include two tracks — one for those newer to Jewish mindfulness meditation (including those who are new to retreats) and one for those with more experience. These tracks will offer different length meditation periods and tailored instructions. There will also be opportunities to mindfully explore the beautiful grounds and forested trails of the Garrison Institute.

*Please note: Part of the power of retreat at the Garrison Institute comes from its long history as a monastery and practice center. And, this historical building is limited in accessibility. While our meditation and meals will be on the first floor, there is limited accessible housing on the first floor and no elevator to upper floors. Please be in touch with us if you have any questions about accessibility on this retreat.

Our instructors will include Senior Core Faculty Rabbis Jordan Bendat-Appell, Sam Feinsmith, Miriam Margles and Marc Margolius, Program Faculty Cantor Lizzie Shammash, and Core Faculty Rebecca Schisler.

This retreat is open to all participants 18+, and all experience levels. This retreat will be held mostly in social silence, except for opening and closing meals, Q&A, communal prayer, and one-on-one sessions with instructors. See FAQs below for more information.

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Sample Daily Schedule

6:45         Sitting Meditation (or personal prayer)

7:15         Shacharit / Morning Prayers / Chanting

8:15         Breakfast 

9:15         Tracks 1 and 2: Meditation with Instruction

12:00       Lunch

1:45         Sitting Meditation

2:15         Walking Meditation

3:00         Q&A and Sitting Meditation

3:45         Yoga, Embodied Practice or Outdoor Walk

5:00         Sitting Meditation / Mincha / Afternoon Prayers

5:30         Dinner 

7:00         Evening Teaching

8:00         Walking Meditation

8:30         Sitting Meditation and Ma’ariv / Evening Prayers

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this retreat for me?

This retreat is open to beginner and more advanced students alike. We will have two tracks for the morning practice to help support both of these groups. If you have never meditated on a retreat before, you are welcome! Our practice guidance will be both accessible and deep.

We also strive to make this retreat inclusive for all bodies through ensuring the availability of gender neutral bathrooms and chairs without arms. Please note below information about accessible housing. If there are additional ways that we can support your sense of belonging during this retreat, please reach out to us.

Meditation is contra-indicated to some mental health conditions. If you are not sure whether retreat is right for you at this time, please contact us at support@jewishspirituality.org.

How is silence practiced on this retreat?

Shortly after our opening program and dinner on the first day, we will enter into what we call “social silence.” We see this as a warm, loving silence, in the presence of others, that helps us be more fully present. This silence will continue until the closing program of the retreat.

We are inviting you to not speak with other participants, check your phone/email, or otherwise “exit” the silence for the duration of each day. This enables you to slow down, sink deeply into the practices, and truly “re-source” yourself in the spaciousness of the silence.

You will have the chance to ask questions of the faculty after instructional periods, in small groups, and during designated Q&A periods throughout the day. We will also be chanting and singing/praying together each day.

How will we be observing Jewish tradition?

Our retreat is deeply rooted in Jewish tradition, and you are welcome to participate regardless of your background. All Hebrew terms will be translated and explained. Our Jewish practice will be egalitarian and contemplative, and will include singing, prayer, and embodied practice.

We will be engaging in prayer as a full group, and there will be time built into the schedule for participants to engage in their personal prayer practice as well. There will be an opportunity to say the Mourner’s Kaddish three times every day.

Our retreat will be kosher, according to IJS Kashrut Standards.

Food on Retreat

A sensory highlight of this retreat will be the healthy and delicious gourmet food served by the Garrison Institute. Our menu will be vegetarian — with vegan, dairy, and fish options. We will be kashering the Garrison kitchen and working with their kitchen team to offer kosher food according to IJS Kashrut Standards. When registering, you will have the opportunity to let us know about any dietary restrictions you may have.

 

Accessibility & Accommodations

  • Wheelchair/Scooter Access: First floor rooms are accessible, including dining and meeting spaces. The building entry is via a ramp at the main entrance. The dining hall uses a temporary metal ramp to bypass a few entrance stairs.
  • ADA-Compliant Rooms: There are two double ADA-compliant wheelchair accessible rooms and one single ADA-compliant wheelchair accessible room on the first floor with a semi-private shared ADA-compliant bathroom between them.
  • Bathroom for Accessible Rooms: The three ADA-compliant wheelchair accessible rooms share one semi-private bathroom (single toilet and shower stall). Private signage prevents other guests from using it.

Retreat Faculty

Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell

Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell is Senior Core Faculty at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality (IJS), where he teaches Jewish mindfulness and text and directs cohort and retreat programs. Jordan began working for IJS as rabbinical student intern in 2005, and was on staff from 2011-2017, as a teacher of Jewish Mindfulness, leading retreats, and as Director of the Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training. Jordan also taught meditation to rabbis and cantors through IJS’ Clergy Leadership Program.

Currently at IJS, Jordan focuses on teaching Jewish mindfulness and text, planning and directing retreats, and leading the development of a new training program for advanced teachers of Jewish mindfulness.Jordan will also continue to share his expertise through online courses and on retreats, fostering mindful engagement with Jewish wisdom and tradition.

Rabbi Sam Feinsmith

As Senior Core Faculty at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality Sam directs the IJS Clergy Leadership Program and serves on the faculty of Gates of Awareness, a training program for aspiring teachers of Jewish mindfulness meditation. He is one of two lead teachers for our online course on the fundamentals of Jewish mindfulness meditation, The Gift of Awareness, and has written the IJS year-long Hasidic text study offering for a number of years running. After close to fifteen years teaching contemplative practices grounded in mindfulness to teens and educators, Sam originally came on board at IJS to develop and direct the Educating for a Jewish Spiritual Life Program, which brought these practices to hundreds of Jewish day- and religious-school educators and their students.

Rabbi Miriam Margles

Miriam has a long and rich association with IJS, having taught on various retreats and programs over the years. She joins the Institute as a Senior Core Faculty after over a decade as the rabbi of the Danforth Jewish Circle in Toronto. She is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship and the Jerusalem Fellows at the Mandel Leadership Institute. Miriam as a founding faculty member at the Romemu Yeshiva, serving as a fellow with the Rising Song Institute, co-founding Encounter – the award-winning educational program working toward informed, courageous and resilient Jewish leadership on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and recording her original Jewish music with the Hadar Rising Song ensemble.

Rabbi Marc Margolius

Rabbi Marc Margolius serves as advisor for overall programming for IJS, and directs programming for lay leaders as well as Hevraya, the alumni of our Clergy Leadership Program. He hosts the “Daily Sit,” IJS’s online daily mindfulness meditation sessions, and teaches courses for IJS, including Awareness in Action: Cultivating Character through Mindfulness and Middot, our online program in tikkun middot practice, integrating Jewish mindfulness with attention to core middot, character traits.

Previously, Marc served as rabbi at West End Synagogue in Manhattan and Congregation Beth Am Israel in Penn Valley, PA, where he pioneered a Shabbat-centered model of congregational engagement. He developed and led the Legacy Heritage Innovation Project at the Legacy Heritage Fund from 2005-2010, an initiative to promote systemic educational change in congregations around the globe.

Long active in social justice activism, Marc is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and of Yale Law School and lives in New York City.

Cantor Lizzie Shammash

Cantor Lizzie Shammash’s first career as an opera singer brought her to Iyengar and Kripalu Yoga studies. She completed teacher training at Om Yoga with Cyndi Lee and continued her studies in pranayama, restorative and prenatal yoga. After graduating from Jewish Theological Seminary, Lizzie’s love of yoga and Judaism found their authentic fusion through studies with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality where she currently serves as a faculty member teaching yoga and mindfulness to rabbis and cantors. She leads yoga and contemplative prayer inspired by the Jewish calendar nationally for synagogue communities. Lizzie is passionate about helping others bring Judaism into the body, voice, and heart—through both methodical and creative embodied practice—and she lives in Philadelphia, where she has served two congregations. 

Rebecca Schisler

Rebecca is a core faculty member at IJS, where she directs young adult programming and created and steers the Shevet Jewish Mindfulness Community, a space for folks in or near their twenties and thirties to dive deep into Jewish spirituality and mindfulness practice in online and virtual spaces. Additionally, she creates and curates content for IJS social media and frequently teaches on retreats and multi-week online programs.

Rebecca is honored to serve on this faculty after years of leading groups and teaching classes and retreats with Or HaLev, Pardes, Wilderness Torah, Stanford School of Medicine, Hillel at Stanford, Urban Adamah, Hamakom, and the Awakened Heart Project. 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.

The Marbeh Fellowship

The Marbeh Fellowship

Dec 9, 2025

The Marbeh Fellowship

Cultivating Senior Jewish Mindfulness Teachers

February 2026 – August 2028

 

Marbeh is a 30-month fellowship program to cultivate a new generation of Jewish mindfulness and spirituality educators to lead the field with enhanced teaching and practice. The 24-member cohort participates in intensive in-person retreats, ongoing study, writing, chevruta, teaching, publication, and both peer and traditional mentorship. 

Marbeh builds upon several of IJS’s previous programs and includes both veteran teachers and earlier career, promising teachers. The goal of this fellowship is to invest in the deepening of each teacher’s practice and teaching in order to help the overall field thrive and for the Torah of Jewish Mindfulness to flourish.

We’re thrilled to welcome our 2026 cohort! These dedicated teachers will deepen their practice and expand their capacity to guide others. To learn more about this exceptional first cohort, please visit our 2026 fellowship directory.

Fellows pictured, in order from left to right, top to bottom: Shira Abramowitz, Rabbi Benjamin Barnett, Rabbi Lauren Berkun, Aviva Chernick, Alison Cohen, Rabbi Josh Feigelson, Rabbi Sam Feinsmith, Sarah Hurwitz, Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife, Jes Golden, PhD, David Gottlieb, PhD, Rabbi Ariel Hendelman, Rabbi Zvika Krieger, Rabbi Miriam Margles, Rabbi Batsheva Meiri, Cantor Julie Newman, Rabbi Dev Noily, Rabbi Shuli Passow, Rabbi Benjamin Ross, Rebecca Schisler, Larry Schwartz, Yael Shy, Rabbi Lauren Tuchman, Carrie Watkins.

We are grateful to the Covenant Foundation for supporting us in launching our Marbeh Fellowship this year, and for recently interviewing our Senior Core Faculty, Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell, about this innovative new program.

In their annual issue of Sight Line, the foundation interviews project directors from their newest cohort of Covenant grantees and asks them generative questions to uncover their inspirations, their passions, and their visions for the field of Jewish education.

Read the full interview.

Meet The Instructors:

Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell

Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell is Senior Core Faculty at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality (IJS), where he teaches Jewish mindfulness and text and directs cohort and retreat programs. Jordan began working for IJS as rabbinical student intern in 2005, and was on staff from 2011-2017, as a teacher of Jewish Mindfulness, leading retreats, and as Director of the Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training. Jordan also taught meditation to rabbis and cantors through IJS’ Clergy Leadership Program.

Currently at IJS, Jordan focuses on teaching Jewish mindfulness and text, planning and directing retreats, and leading the development of a new training program for advanced teachers of Jewish mindfulness.Jordan will also continue to share his expertise through online courses and on retreats, fostering mindful engagement with Jewish wisdom and tradition.

Dorothy Richman

Rabba Dorothy Richman

Rabba Dorothy Richman serves as Rabbi of MakorOr: Jewish Meditation Center and Rabbi Emerita of Congregation Beth Sholom in San Francisco. She teaches on the faculty of the Institute forJewish Spirituality’s Clergy Leadership Program and for Or HaLev. Dorothy’s commited to the spiritual practices of Torah study, meditation, prayer, and justice. She is a soulful leader of traditional and creative ritual, and released an album of original music called Something of Mine, available on Bandcamp.

Seeing into the Life of Things: Imagination and the Sacred Encounter

Seeing into the Life of Things: Imagination and the Sacred Encounter

Nov 19, 2025

Seeing into the Life of Things:

Imagination and the Sacred Encounter

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Cultivate a daily gratitude practice by leaving the world of negative emotions and reactivity

Renowned author and poet Rodger Kamenetz (author of the classic bestseller The Jew in the Lotus), will offer a five-week program of imaginative spiritual practice based on his new book: Seeing into the Life of Things: Imagination and the Sacred Encounter.

Do you find yourself grappling with the anxiety and uncertainty of our times? How can we engage our five senses to develop a gratitude practice that purifies an afflictive state of mind? In this 5-week course, you will embark on a journey that entwines our senses, dreams, and imagination with the sacred by:

  • Engaging the healing power of “feeling into images” in memory, perception, and dreams.
  • Cultivating a mindset of “counting blessings” and integrating this blessing practice into the traditional Jewish morning prayer practice.
  • Connecting inner feelings with the outer world, evoking images from our dream life. 
  • Developing greater empathy and a shift in consciousness toward what Kamenetz terms “the Great Opening.”

This course includes access to a dedicated WhatsApp group for discussion and a restorative curriculum that:

  • Introduces the modeh/modah ani as a gratitude practice.
  • Enhances your morning prayer practice with counting blessings.
  • Cultivates your senses and the hidden role of imagination in everyday perception.
  • Introduces dreams as the laboratory of imagination.
  • Contemplates images in dream and how dreams can bring us to a cosmic religious experience.

Participants are strongly encouraged to purchase Rodger Kamenetz’s book, Seeing into the Life of Things: Imagination and the Sacred Encounter. Available at booksellers everywhere, including Barnes and Noble, Bookshop.org, and Amazon.

Discover for yourself what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel called “radical amazement”

Sign Up Today

Components of the Course

Week 1

A Challenge from the Dalai Lama

A Challenge from the Dalai Lama: How do you purify afflictive states of mind?

The neglected power of imagination. The role of imagination in memory.  A simple visualization practice. Introduction to the modeh/modah ani as a gratitude practice.

Week 2

Counting Blessings

Counting Blessings

A visualization practice for cherishing moments of blessing. Adding counting blessings to morning prayer practice.

Week 3

Imaginative Perception

Imaginative Perception: “What we half-create and perceive”

The hidden role of imagination in everyday perception. Exercises in cultivating your senses. Finding infinity in a wildflower. Imaginative perception and Heschel’s “radical amazement.” The sacred encounter in waking life. The cosmic religious experience.

Week 4

Memory and Dream Images

Memory and Dream Images: Deep Memory; Spots of Time

Introduction to dreams as a laboratory of imagination. The power of contemplating formative memories. Distinguishing imagination in dreams from the story-telling of the ego. Distinguishing feeling and reaction to purify afflictive states of mind.

Week 5

Sacred Encounters in Dreams

Sacred Encounters in Dreams

How dreams can bring us to a cosmic religious experience, encounters with the angelic /archetypal in dreams. Contemplating images in dreams.

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Testimonials

“With his profound knowledge of poetry, and decades of experience in dreamwork, as well as Hasidic studies, Kamenetz offers not just a deep investigation of the power of images to open up a more connected and engaged life, but a path of practice to help reconnect us with our authentic self and the vivid life of the soul. I don’t know of a book that so richly brings together poetry, dreams, imagination and the spiritual life. It needed to be written, and needs to be read, now more than ever. A real gem.”

—Henry Shukman, author of One Blade of Grass and Original Love

“This book is a harvest of living wisdom, a ripening of the garden Rodger Kamenetz has been cultivating for decades. Tenderly and with lucid insight, he walks us through the gates of poetry and dreams, of Jewish mysticism and Zen Buddhism, of science and art. Not only does Kamenetz celebrate the power of the imagination to open our souls, but the abundance of images he scoops up from his own life and offers to us with outstretched hands cannot help but transform our ordinary lives from a set of tasks to be accomplished into an ever-unfolding sacred encounter.”
—Mirabai Starr, author of God of Love and Ordinary Mysticism

“Rodger Kamenetz opened a new side to our congregation that many of us didn’t know was there. Rodger helped people explore a spiritual depth that inspired and encouraged many to live more boldly and with greater intention and compassion. Unlike some Scholar in Residence experiences, which are nice but afterwards, we all carry on as before, Rodger left our community with much to explore and build upon. I can’t recommend him more highly as a scholar or artist in residence.”

—Rabbi Laurence Rosenthal, Ahavat Achim Synagogue, Atlanta GA

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Meet Your Instructor:

Rodger Kamenetz

Rodger Kamenetz is an award-winning poet, author and teacher. Of his 13 books, his best known is The Jew in the Lotus, the story of rabbis making a holy pilgrimage through India to meet with the Dalai Lama. His account of their historic dialogue became an international bestseller, prompting a reevaluation of Judaism in the light of Buddhist thought. Now in its 37th printing overall, The Jew in the Lotus is a staple of college religion courses. The New York Times called it a “revered text.” A PBS documentary followed, and a sequel, Stalking Elijah, was awarded the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought. Kamenetz’s Burnt Books, in Schocken/Nextbook’s Jewish Encounters series, once again crosses boundaries, between literature and religion. It begins as a dual biography of Franz Kafka and Rebbe Nachman, who each asked his best friend to burn his books. It ends with Kamenetz on his own pilgrimage to Kafka’s Prague and to the rebbe’s grave in Ukraine.

Born in Baltimore, Rodger Kamenetz has degrees from Yale, Johns Hopkins and Stanford. At Louisiana State University, he held a dual appointment as a Professor of English and Professor of Religious Studies and founded the MFA program in creative writing and the Jewish Studies minor. He retired as LSU Distinguished Professor and Sternberg Honors Chair Professor. He lives in New Orleans where he now devotes himself to his work with clients who seek spiritual direction through dreams.

The Shevet Reset: Jewish Meditation Challenge for Young Adults

The Shevet Reset: Jewish Meditation Challenge for Young Adults

Nov 19, 2025

The Shevet Reset

Jewish Meditation Challenge for Young Adults

Join our FREE Jewish meditation challenge!

February 2 – 17, 2026

Live sessions:
Launch Party February 2
Celebration Party February 17
5:00 PM PT / 8:00 PM ET

Click Here to Sign Up for Free

The Shevet Reset is a 14-day guided Jewish meditation challenge specifically for adults under 40, and offers an easy, supportive entry point into Jewish mindfulness. Through daily morning emails, peer accountability through WhatsApp, and two live Zoom gatherings, participants establish a steady meditation habit, clarify personal intentions (kavanot), and build meaningful community within Shevet, IJS’s young adult network.

Set a personal goal, track your progress, and cheer on a community of peers who are beginning again right alongside you. Join us to deepen your connection to Judaism and awaken a new sense of presence, purpose, and possibility for the year ahead.

A simple, supportive, and doable challenge, uniquely grounded in Jewish mindfulness, spiritual resilience, and the power of a collective fresh start.

Start the year from the inside out with a two-week Jewish meditation challenge designed for folks in their 20s and 30s seeking clarity, motivation, and authentic connection. Each day of the challenge, you’ll receive a piece of inspiration directly into your inbox, including guided meditation practices, sparks of Jewish wisdom, journaling prompts, beautiful music, and a “deep dive” resource. There will also be two live parties (via Zoom) to launch and close the journey together with our Shevet community.

Come out of the challenge feeling inspired by Jewish wisdom, strengthened in your Jewish meditation practice, and connected to others in our IJS 20’s and 30’s community (Shevet).

Components of the Challenge

Daily Inspiration:
Each morning, you will receive a short, meaningful practice directly in your inbox. This might be a guided meditation, a spark of Jewish wisdom, journaling prompts, or a piece of uplifting music to ground and inspire your day.

Community Accountability + Personal Goal Setting:
You are invited to choose a personal intention or habit for the two-week journey, track your progress, earn milestone awards and cheer each other on through our group challenge platform. Yael Shy, your guide, will also answer questions and drop daily cheers and bits of inspiration into your portal along the way.

Two Live Sessions:
We’ll launch and close the challenge together with two Zoom gatherings that include setting intentions, community connection, live practice, and a celebration of the commitments you’ve made.

Simple, Flexible Structure:
The entire experience is designed to be doable in just 10 minutes a day, while providing enough depth, Jewish grounding, and community support to spark meaningful long-term change.

Daily Content

  • Feb 2: Intentions/Kavanot
  • Feb 3: Presence
  • Feb 4: Transitions
  • Feb 5: Movement
  • Feb 6: Shabbat/Deep Rest (part one)
  • Feb 7: Shabbat/Deep Rest (part two)
  • Feb 8: Eating
  • Feb 9: Authenticity
  • Feb 10: Blessings
  • Feb 11: Listening
  • Feb 12: Compassion
  • Feb 13: Awe (part one)
  • Feb 14: Awe (part two)
  • Feb 15: Joy
  • Feb 16: Return
  • Feb 17: Celebration and Next steps
Save Your Spot

Meet Your Challenge Host

Yael Shy

Yael Shy

Yael Shy has been using the transformative power of mindfulness, rooted in her 20+ years of study in Judaism and Zen Buddhism, to support herself and others through the pressures of life. It is her life’s purpose to support individuals and collectives uncover their inherent worth and capacity for deep joy.

Yael is the Founder and CEO of Sefira Wellness, 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. She teaches for New York University, Columbia School of Law, the Institute for Jewish Spirituality and Or HaLev. She has been featured on Good Morning America, CBS, Fox 5 News, and in Time Magazine and the Harvard Business Review. She lives in Stamford, Connecticut, and you can find her online at www.sefirawellness.com and on instagram @yaelshy1

 

This Challenge will also feature the wisdom of Institute for Jewish Spirituality and Shevet teachers:

Jordyn Steifman, Ariel Hendleman, Alison Cohen, Rabbi Josh Feigleson, Yoshi Silverstein, Rebecca Schisler, Rabbi Zvika Krieger, Kohenet Kashira HaLev Fife, Kohenet Shamira Chandler, Jack Leopold, Aviva Chernick and Rabbi Miriam Margles

Register now!

Sitting with the Sefirot: A Kabbalistic Journey for Deepening Your Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Practice

Sitting with the Sefirot: A Kabbalistic Journey for Deepening Your Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Practice

Nov 17, 2025

Sitting with the Sefirot:

Sitting with the Sefirot: A Kabbalistic Journey for Deepening Your Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Practice

February 9 – May 31, 2026

17 Sessions, Live on Zoom

Click Here to Register

This course will help you take your daily meditation practice to the next level through the Kabbalah’s mystical sefirot—lenses to help us channel, focus, and reveal the sublime light of our own Divine nature. The Kabbalah’s mystical sefirot provide a systematic structure and spiritual framework for deepening our meditation practice skills and cultivating virtue, all while connecting to Jewish wisdom. 

We will explore each of the seven lower sefirot as a foundation to:

• Expand your capacity to feel and extend love

• Strengthen your discipline in practice

• Develop greater attentional balance

• Stabilize your meditative concentration

• Cultivate devekut, connection with the Divine

• Shift into nondual awareness

• Take your practice into your daily life

Meet Your Instructor:

Rabbi Sam Feinsmith

As Senior Core Faculty at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality Sam directs the IJS Clergy Leadership Program and serves on the faculty of Gates of Awareness, a training program for aspiring teachers of Jewish mindfulness meditation. He is one of two lead teachers for our online course on the fundamentals of Jewish mindfulness meditation, The Gift of Awareness, and has written the IJS year-long Hasidic text study offering for a number of years running. After close to fifteen years teaching contemplative practices grounded in mindfulness to teens and educators, Sam originally came on board at IJS to develop and direct the Educating for a Jewish Spiritual Life Program, which brought these practices to hundreds of Jewish day- and religious-school educators and their students.

Falling in Love with the World Again: Finding Our Way When Everything Feels Broken

Falling in Love with the World Again: Finding Our Way When Everything Feels Broken

Nov 15, 2025

Falling in Love with the World Again:

Finding Our Way When Everything Feels Broken

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Meet the onslaught of the world's crises with courage, calm, and even joy.

It is easy to feel helpless, angry, and overwhelmed with the enormous amount of news that provokes fear and uncertainty. The many emotions we feel about climate disasters, authoritarianism, violence, and the relentless news cycle can be deeply uncomfortable. But when we let them in, they also can be energizing, connecting, and even reorient us to our own strength and purpose.
Join us for a five-week program with Anya Kamenetz, an award-winning author, former NPR reporter, and expert on climate change and mental health, to examine our collective emotional responses to the crises of our time and learn to find inspiration even in the depths of despair.

In conversation and in practice, Anya will take us on a journey that explores our emotions with curiosity – building resilience and working with the energy within our bodies. Together, we will:

  • Map our collective pain for the world: identifying the spiral and the wheel
  • Discover the healing alchemy: transforming your grief, rage, apathy, fear and despair
  • Call In your resources and refuges: exploring body and breath, relationship and community, nature and the sacred, ancestral mentors and deep time 
  • Practice each week: grounding ourselves in guided meditation, creative exercises in movement, art and writing, and group work 
  • Study the wisdom: tuning into prophets, rabbis, lamas, mystics, Indigenous sages, neuroscientists, ecologists, and activists.

Testimonials

“I wanted to say a deep, profound thank you…for the talk you gave at New York Insight on The Wheel of Climate Emotions….

I almost backed out of attending the talk — it all felt so overwhelming to even try to hold. But I am so very glad that I was able to come and gain an entirely different perspective on experiencing and appreciating the variety of feelings I move through regarding climate change. 

I have been putting so much of what you shared into reflection, practice, and meditation, and I just cannot say how incredibly grateful I am to you [and Jay] for helping to open up my eyes.”

“I supported your work because I need guidance on how to do The Work. I do not want to be lost in despair or overcome by fury. Instead I want to turn grief and anger into action so that we all have a joyful future to look towards. Looking forward to continuing to read and DO. Thanks, Anya <3”

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Please submit your name and email address and we will inform you once new course dates are released.

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Name

Meet Your Instructor:

Anya Kamenetz

Anya Kamenetz speaks, writes, and thinks about thriving and caring for others on a rapidly changing planet. Her newsletter on these topics is The Golden Hour. For NPR, she co-created and co hosted the podcast Life Kit: Parenting. Her last book was The Stolen Year: How Covid Changed Children’s Lives, And Where We Go Now. Kamenetz currently advises the Climate Mental Health Network, working on new initiatives at the intersection of well-being and climate change. There, she created the Climate Emotions Wheel, which is being used all over the world to help people understand their climate feelings. She worked with the eco-spiritual teacher Joanna Macy producing her last project, the podcast We Are The Great Turning. Her next book, forthcoming from Bloomsbury, is about how to cope with the world right now: the emotional landscape of polycrisis.

An Evening of Light

An Evening of Light

Sep 19, 2025

Join us for

An Evening of Light

Celebrating 25 years of spiritual practice, mindfulness, and connection

Honoring

Dorian Goldman and Marvin Israelow

for their vision, leadership, and devotion to IJS

December 14, 2025 from 6:00 – 9:00 PM

B’nai Jeshurun, 257 West 88th Street, New York City

Heavy hors d’oeuvres & dessert will be served. Festive Attire.

Together on the first night of Chanukah, we will honor the past, celebrate the present, and light the way forward.

There are 4 Ways to Support the Celebration

Become A Sponsor
Attend the Event
Watch the Livestream
Make A Donation

Honorary Committee (In Formation)

Sylvia Boorstein

Cantor Joshua Breitzer

Rabbi Marcelo Bronstein

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl

Cantor Shayna De Lowe

Alisa Doctoroff

Cantor Joanna Dulkin

Jane Eisner

Rabbi Jacqueline Ellenson

Rabbi Tirzah Firestone

Rabbi Nancy Flam

Rabbi Laura Geller

Rabbi Matthew Gewirtz

Rabbi Lisa Goldstein

Ann Greenstein

Sarah Hurwitz

Rabbi David Ingber

Rabbi Naama Kelman

Rabbi Myriam Klotz

Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie

Rabbi Roly Matalon 

Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg

Rabbi Karen Perolman

Abigail Pogrebin

Terry Rosenberg

John Ruskay

Larry Schwartz

Rabbi Jonathan Slater

Rabbi Felicia Sol

Rabbi Benjamin Spratt

Rabbi Michael Strassfeld

Rabbi Rachel Timoner

Fire and Flow: Creativity and Mindfulness

Fire and Flow: Creativity and Mindfulness

Jul 28, 2025

Fire and Flow:

Creativity and Mindfulness

 

Co-Sponsored by the Jewish Studio Project

Registration is Now Closed

Two virtual live sessions each month:

Learning sessions with IJS on Tuesdays at 3:30-5:00 PM ET 

Creative Studio Sessions hosted by the Jewish Studio Project on Sundays, 1:00-2:30 PM ET

All sessions facilitated by Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife. Full course calendar is listed below.

Sign Up to Be Notified When Registration Opens

Find the spark of creativity within you, and open the way for it to flow into your daily life.

Fire and Flow: Creativity and Mindfulness is a year long journey into the heart of creative and spiritual practice — a space where mindfulness and artistic expression meet to spark insight and joy, presence, purpose, and connection. Rooted in the idea that each of us is made in the Divine image, this course will help each person tap into their innate capacity to create, whether through visual art, writing, ritual creation, prayer, or more.

Rather than focusing on outcomes or product, Fire and Flow will offer the space to wonder, reflect, and reconnect with the Source of creativity. We’ll explore dimensions of the creative process that can be applied to life off-the-page, cultivate practices for more mindful living, and discover how creative engagement can deepen our sense of meaning and connection to Judaism — individually and in community.

Whether you’re a lifelong artist or creatively curious, this class is a chance to rekindle your inner fire and move through the world with more flow.

 

  • DISCOVER how creative practice can be an exercise in mindfulness. 
  • AWAKEN your creative impulse to renew your body, mind, heart, and soul.
  • EXPAND your resilience and compassion by engaging with creativity as a healing and grounding practice.
  • CULTIVATE practical tools to move between focused creation and receptive flow.
  • DEEPEN your capacity for presence as you work and play with the materials and the page.
  • CONNECT with the source of creativity and experience the feeling of creation flowing through you.

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Name

Monthly Themes

Elul

Overview

Tishrei

Source of Creativity

Cheshvan

Surrender

Kislev

Non-Judgement

Tevet

Notice Everything

Shvat

Inspiration

Adar

Curiosity

Nisan

Divine Partnership

Iyar

Blockages

Sivan

Abundance

Tammuz

Resistance

Av

Flow

Testimonials

“Everyone should get the chance to experience the caring facilitation and guidance of Keshira leading you through the Jewish Studio Process. They model what it looks like to create a virtual space where everyone can show up just as you are — feeling safe, supported, and seen. I wWill absolutely look to take classes with her again!”

“Keshira’s facilitating was so great– — so calm and welcoming, so reassuring, walking us through the process with such ease and clarity, creating a container in this challenging time while also inviting us to challenge ourselves. I love that the series had an arc — from rest to dreams to rededication — and I loved the richness of the source sheets, which had useful texts that spoke to each other and inspiring questions that led to some tender and searching havruta conversations.”

“[Keshira] is a wonderful facilitator; authentic, warm, and she creates a safe container for the participants to feel comfortable sharing in their own way, and respecting one another’s choices in each session.”

Meet Your Instructor:

Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife

IJS Core Faculty

Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife (she/they) sprinkles sparkles, disrupts expectations, and offers blessings wherever she goes. She serves as Founding Kohenet of Kesher Pittsburgh and Core Faculty Member with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, and also enjoys working with beloved, The Jewish Studio Project, Kirva, the Avodah Institute for Social Change, and the Jewish Learning Collaborative, among other national Jewish organisations. Additionally, she delights in serving as a shlichat tzibbur, life spiral ceremony/ritual creatrix, consultant, facilitator, teacher, liturgist and songstress. Her work in these realms is informed by her lived experience as a queer, bi-racial, child-free 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. Though both the lands of the Osage & Haudenosaunee people (aka Pittsburgh, PA) and the Gadigal people (Sydney, AUS) feel like home, Keshira and her beloved have been in an extended period of travel since January 2023.

Text Study 5786

Text Study 5786

Jul 28, 2025

Text Study 5786

Deepen Your Experience with Torah

Full Year Program

Begins October 12, 2025

Studying and interpreting Torah is one of Judaism’s oldest and richest forms of spiritual practice. At IJS, we approach text study holistically – both as an intellectual experience and as an opportunity for experiential, heart-centered, practice-based spiritual growth and development.
This year, we bring you two new text study streams with extraordinary Torah teachers, both of whom provide rich material for contemplative study. These programs will support you in finding personal meaning, expanding your spiritual awareness, and deepening your inner life and mindfulness practice. We encourage you to sign-up for a chevruta/study partner or take the course with a friend in order to deepen your learning and practice.

Bring the transformative light of Torah and Hasidic wisdom into your daily life.

Register Now

For All Learners

A Healing Journey

Through the Torah

Trauma, Resilience, and the Tree of Life
with Rabbi Lisa Goldstein
In this text study, Rabbi Lisa Goldstein will take us on a healing journey through the Torah, which has been called “Etz Chayim—the Tree of Life” for giving strength and hope to Jews for millennia. During troubled times like these, we yearn to heal ourselves and to grow, and the stories of our ancestors grappling with their own hardships can provide a guide.

We will examine each Torah portion through a trauma-informed lens so we can draw upon its wisdom, find the potential for growth within ourselves, and cultivate resilience and open-heartedness to help us navigate the days ahead.

This offering is designed to be accessible to all learners – no prior experience with Torah study or mindfulness is required.

Rabbi Lisa will also offer monthly live Zoom sessions for practice and Q&A.

In this text stream, every week you will receive:

  • Teachings drawn from the well of ancestral wisdom and resilience, including exploration of Torah, midrash, mystical texts, and other sources from Jewish tradition.
  • Cutting-edge insights into the ways that different kinds of trauma (intergenerational, attachment, complex, shock, etc.) impact our lives and how healing takes place.
  • A trauma-informed lens to mindfulness practices that can support resilience, personal growth, and self-harmony, even as challenging events continue to take place. (Growth doesn’t have to be “post-traumatic”!)
  • Instructions for personal practice and chevruta discussion that can deepen integration of learning and experience.
  • Access to an archive of all texts and materials from previous weeks’ teachings.

Monthly Live Sessions will be held on Tuesdays from 3:00-4:00 PM ET on the following dates:

2025: November 4, December 2
2026: January 6, February 3, March 10, April 7, May 5, June 2, July 7, August 4, September 1 and September 29

Here’s What Rabbi Lisa’s Students Have to Say About The Impact of Her Teaching on Their Practice:

“Rabbi Lisa is a gifted educator who makes our community members feel as if they are learners and teachers. She uses a strengths-based approach to bring people into text, and to foster spaces that invite constituents to be vulnerable and open. We have benefited deeply from the way in which she transmits and elicits knowledge.” – Claire Nisen

“Rabbi Lisa is notably attentive to creating inviting and peaceful atmospheres for learning. She skillfully reads the temperature of the room with care and her invitations for participation are genuine invitations. She provides clarity and guidance to her students while holding their energy, spirit, and needs with utmost sensitivity and consideration. She is a true gift to each student fortunate enough to learn with and from her.” – Abby Mintz

In this text study, Rabbi Lisa Goldstein will take us on a healing journey through the Torah, which has been called “Etz Chayim—the Tree of Life” for giving strength and hope to Jews for millennia. During troubled times like these, we yearn to heal ourselves and to grow, and the stories of our ancestors grappling with their own hardships can provide a guide.

We will examine each Torah portion through a trauma-informed lens so we can draw upon its wisdom, find the potential for growth within ourselves, and cultivate resilience and open-heartedness to help us navigate the days ahead.

This offering is designed to be accessible to all learners – no prior experience with Torah study or mindfulness is required.

Rabbi Lisa will also offer monthly live Zoom sessions for practice and Q&A. (recorded for those unable to attend live)

In this text stream, every week you will receive:

  • Teachings drawn from the well of ancestral wisdom and resilience, including exploration of Torah, midrash, mystical texts, and other sources from Jewish tradition.
  • Cutting-edge insights into the ways that different kinds of trauma (intergenerational, attachment, complex, shock, etc.) impact our lives and how healing takes place.
  • A trauma-informed lens to mindfulness practices that can support resilience, personal growth, and self-harmony, even as challenging events continue to take place. (Growth doesn’t have to be “post-traumatic”!)
  • Instructions for personal practice and chevruta discussion that can deepen integration of learning and experience.
  • Access to an archive of all texts and materials from previous weeks’ teachings.

Monthly Live Sessions will be held on Tuesdays from 3:00-4:00 PM ET on the following dates:

2025: November 4, December 2
2026: January 6, February 3, March 10, April 7, May 5, June 2, July 7, August 4, September 1 and September 29

Here’s What Rabbi Lisa’s Students Have to Say About The Impact of Her Teaching on Their Practice

“Rabbi Lisa is a gifted educator who makes our community members feel as if they are learners and teachers. She uses a strengths-based approach to bring people into text, and to foster spaces that invite constituents to be vulnerable and open. We have benefited deeply from the way in which she transmits and elicits knowledge.” – Claire Nisen

 

“Rabbi Lisa is notably attentive to creating inviting and peaceful atmospheres for learning. She skillfully reads the temperature of the room with care and her invitations for participation are genuine invitations. She provides clarity and guidance to her students while holding their energy, spirit, and needs with utmost sensitivity and consideration. She is a true gift to each student fortunate enough to learn with and from her.” – Abby Mintz

For Seasoned Learners

Awareness in All Things

 Rebbe Nachman of Breslov on the Weekly Torah Portion
with Rabbi Sam Feinsmith
In this new IJS course—Awareness in All Things: Rebbe Nachman of Breslov on the Weekly Torah Portion—Rabbi Sam Feinsmith will guide us through the powerful teachings of the charismatic Hasidic master Rebbe Nachman (1772-1810) and his principal student, Reb Noson (1780-1844).

During his lifetime, Rebbe Nachman inspired the revival of the Hasidic movement, drawing thousands of followers on account of his unparalleled piety and erudition; practical, down-to-earth, joyous spirituality; and his emphasis on cultivating a personal, unmediated relationship with the Divine. His prolific, original teachings continue to provide practical wisdom that remains highly relevant in our time.

Each week, we will ground our work of cultivating spiritual awareness and refining our character in a single teaching from Rebbe Nachman on the Torah portion, available in Hebrew and English. Rabbi Feinsmith will translate each teaching into a contemporary idiom with an original, mindfulness-inspired commentary, reflection questions for journaling/chevruta study, practice instructions, and guided audio meditations.

This course is for seasoned students of Hasidic text and mindfulness practice who wish to draw inspiration, deepen their contemplative practice, and expand their knowledge of Kabbalah and Hasidic spirituality. Though the teachings of Rebbe Nachman and Reb Noson are widely available, this year-long offering supports us to work with them in an accessible, immersive, and transformative manner and explore their profound relevance for our times.

Rabbi Sam will also offer monthly live Zoom sessions for practice and Q&A. (recorded for those unable to attend live)

In this text stream, every week you will receive:

  • A carefully-selected piece of commentary on the weekly Torah portion, excerpted from the original Hebrew text
  • An annotated English translation of the week’s text along with a summary of key points that pertain to spiritual practice
  • Reflection questions designed to support you in discovering authentic connections between the text and your lived experience
  • Detailed instructions for mindfulness practice
  • Access to an archive of all texts and materials from previous weeks’ teachings

Monthly Live Sessions will be held on Mondays from 3:00-4:15 PM ET on the following dates:

2025: November 10, December 15
2026: January 12, February 9, March 9, April 13, May 11, June 8, July 6, August 10, September 14, and October 5

This offering is best suited for seasoned students of Hasidic text and mindfulness practice, and it will also provide rich content for those who wish to develop sermons and teachings for their congregations.

By participating in this course of study and practice, you will:

  • Grow your knowledge of key Hasidic terms, ideas, views, and practices
  • Deepen your mindfulness practice
  • Deepen your awareness of God’s loving presence within and all around you
  • Cultivate habits of heart and mind that nurture greater balance, well-being, and resilience during difficult times
  • Gain access to new materials for developing sermons and teachings for your community
  • If studying with a chevruta, develop a deeper sense of spiritual intimacy and kinship as you practice and study together and explore the relevance of the teachings to your spiritual growth
In this new IJS course—Awareness in All Things: Rebbe Nachman of Breslov on the Weekly Torah Portion—Rabbi Sam Feinsmith will guide us through the powerful teachings of the charismatic Hasidic master Rebbe Nachman (1772-1810) and his principal student, Reb Noson (1780-1844).

During his lifetime, Rebbe Nachman inspired the revival of the Hasidic movement, drawing thousands of followers on account of his unparalleled piety and erudition; practical, down-to-earth, joyous spirituality; and his emphasis on cultivating a personal, unmediated relationship with the Divine. His prolific, original teachings continue to provide practical wisdom that remains highly relevant in our time.

Each week, we will ground our work of cultivating spiritual awareness and refining our character in a single teaching from Rebbe Nachman on the Torah portion, available in Hebrew and English. Rabbi Feinsmith will translate each teaching into a contemporary idiom with an original, mindfulness-inspired commentary, reflection questions for journaling/chevruta study, practice instructions, and guided audio meditations.

This course is for seasoned students of Hasidic text and mindfulness practice who wish to draw inspiration, deepen their contemplative practice, and expand their knowledge of Kabbalah and Hasidic spirituality. Though the teachings of Rebbe Nachman and Reb Noson are widely available, this year-long offering supports us to work with them in an accessible, immersive, and transformative manner and explore their profound relevance for our times.

Rabbi Sam will also offer monthly live Zoom sessions for practice and Q&A. (recorded for those unable to attend live)

In this text stream, every week you will receive:

  • A carefully-selected piece of commentary on the weekly Torah portion, excerpted from the original Hebrew text
  • An annotated English translation of the week’s text along with a summary of key points that pertain to spiritual practice
  • Reflection questions designed to support you in discovering authentic connections between the text and your lived experience
  • Detailed instructions for mindfulness practice
  • Access to an archive of all texts and materials from previous weeks’ teachings

Monthly Live Sessions will be held on Mondays from 3:00-4:15 PM ET on the following dates:

2025: November 10, December 15
2026: January 12, February 9, March 9, April 13, May 11, June 8, July 6, August 10, September 14, and October 5

This offering is best suited for seasoned students of Hasidic text and mindfulness practice, and it will also provide rich content for those who wish to develop sermons and teachings for their congregations.
By participating in this course of study and practice, you will:

  • Grow your knowledge of key Hasidic terms, ideas, views, and practices
  • Deepen your mindfulness practice 
  • Deepen your awareness of God’s loving presence within and all around you
  • Cultivate habits of heart and mind that nurture greater balance, well-being, and resilience during difficult times
  • Gain access to new materials for developing sermons and teachings for your community
  • If studying with a chevruta, develop a deeper sense of spiritual intimacy and kinship as you practice and study together and explore the relevance of the teachings to your spiritual growth 

Course Tuition

IJS is pleased to offer these courses at three tuition levels.

We encourage you to pay at the highest level you can, which will enable more students to participate.

 For All Learners:

A Healing Journey Through the Torah

$349
$299
$199

 For Seasoned Learners:

Awareness in All Things

$449
$399
$299

Meet Your Instructors

Rabbi Lisa Goldstein is a teacher, consultant, and Master Practitioner of NARM, a modality of healing complex trauma. She consults in the fields of education, trauma healing and spirituality for organizations including M2 Institute for Experiential Jewish Education and the Covenant Foundation. She also works one-on-one to support people in their journeys of healing and spiritual growth.

Educated at Brown University and Hebrew Union College, Rabbi Goldstein has almost 25 years of executive experience, having served as the executive director of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality and Hillel of San Diego. She teaches a wide variety of courses, both online and in person, with an emphasis on spiritual wisdom, prayer and meditation, and the teachings of R. Nahman of Breslov.

Rabbi Sam Feinsmith

Rabbi Sam Feinsmith has been immersed in Jewish contemplative living, learning, and teaching for over twenty years, conducting Jewish meditation workshops, programs, and retreats for children, teens, Jewish educators, clergy, and community leaders. He’s passionate about practicing and teaching meditation and making the spiritual teachings of Hasidism available to all. He received an MA in Talmud and Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and rabbinic ordination from YCT Rabbinical School. He also trained as a Jewish mindfulness meditation teacher with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training Program. Sam lives on the land of the Council of the Three Fires – the Potowatami, Ojibwe, and Odawa tribes – currently known as Evanston, IL with his wife Sarah-Bess and daughter Elanit.

Don’t Turn Away: Reading the News Without Losing Your Mind

Don’t Turn Away: Reading the News Without Losing Your Mind

Jul 28, 2025

Don’t Turn Away:

Reading the News Without Losing Your Mind

November 3 – December 1, 2025

Mondays, 8:00 – 9:15 PM ET

5 Mondays, 8:00-9:15 PM ET | November 3, 10, 17, 24, December 1

Sign Up To Be Notified When Registration Opens

Feeling Overwhelmed by the News?

Are you constantly overwhelmed by headlines, feeling anxious, angry, or just plain exhausted by the 24/7 news cycle? Do you find yourself avoiding the news entirely, yet still feeling guilty about not staying informed?

You’re not alone. In today’s hyper-connected world, many of us struggle to engage with the news without feeling overwhelmed, disempowered, or just plain mad. With antisemitism and the war in Israel and Gaza at the center of so many stories today, the news cycle has become especially intense for many of us as Jews. And it’s natural to want to look away. This phenomenon even has a name: News Avoidance Syndrome.

But what if you could approach the news with clarity, intention, and a sense of calm? Join Jane Eisner and Rabbi Josh Feigelson for a unique, five-session online course designed to transform your relationship with information. Drawing on their deep expertise in journalism, media, and Jewish mindfulness, Jane and Josh will equip you with practical tools and spiritual insights to navigate the news wisely, without losing your mind—or your hope.

Reclaim your peace of mind and empower your engagement with the world.

This course is for anyone who:

  • Feels overwhelmed or anxious by current events.
  • Struggles with news fatigue or “doomscrolling.”
  • Wants to be better informed but doesn’t know how to approach the news without feeling defeated.
  • Seeks a more mindful and intentional relationship with media.
  • Is interested in how Jewish wisdom and spiritual practices can offer guidance in navigating modern challenges.

What You'll Discover

This course isn’t about ignoring the world; it’s about engaging with it more effectively and mindfully. Over five weeks, you will:

  • Understand News Avoidance Syndrome. Learn to recognize why you might be tuning out and how our fight-or-flight response can hijack your ability to stay informed.
  • Navigate Emotional Overload. Explore the “Second Arrow” of suffering, acknowledging the deeper motivations (guilt, sadness, weariness) that news can trigger us — and learn to meet them with chesed (compassion).
  • Decode the Media Landscape. Unpack concepts like “news bubbles” and tribal identity, understanding how they shape your perceptions and how to intentionally broaden your perspective.
  • Embrace Mindful Pauses. Discover the power of Jewish spiritual practices like the “Shabbat mind” and Shemirat HaDibbur (mindful speech), to create intentional space and clarity in your news consumption.
  • Cultivate Mindful News Engagement. Develop your own personalized plan for wise, intentional news consumption and explore avenues for mindful civic action.

 

Registration is Now Closed

Please submit your name and email address and we will inform you once new course dates are released.

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Name

Meet Your Instructors:

Rabbi Josh Feigelson

Rabbi Josh Feigelson is President & CEO at IJS, which he has led since 2020. . He received ordination from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School in 2005 and served for six years as the Hillel Rabbi at Northwestern University, where he also earned a PhD in Religious Studies. In 2011, Josh helped found and served as Executive Director of Ask Big Questions, an initiative of Hillel International, which won the inaugural Lippman-Kanfer Prize for Applied Jewish Wisdom. Most recently he served as Dean of Students at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Josh  is the author of Eternal Questions: Reflections, Conversations, and Jewish Mindfulness Practices for the Weekly Torah Portion (Ben Yehuda Press, 2022). He lives with his wife Natalie and their three sons in Skokie, IL.

Jane Eisner

Jane Eisner is an accomplished journalist, educator, consultant, and public speaker. Her book Carole King: She Made the Earth Move will be published in September 2025 by Yale University Press. For more than a decade, she was the Forward’s editor-in-chief, the first woman to lead America’s foremost Jewish publication. She has held academic positions at Columbia Journalism School, University of Pennsylvania, and Wesleyan University. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other publications. Among her many volunteer activities, she is a board member of the Hebrew Free Loan Society, chair of the Binswanger Committee at Wesleyan, and a member if the IJS Advisory Council. She lives in New York with her husband, Dr Mark Berger, and together they have three adult daughters.

Don’t Turn Away: Reading the News Without Losing Your Mind

Don’t Turn Away: Reading the News Without Losing Your Mind

Jul 28, 2025

Don’t Turn Away:

Reading the News Without Losing Your Mind

November 3 – December 1, 2025

Five Live Zoom Sessions

Mondays, 8:00 – 9:15 PM ET

Click Here to Register

Many of us understand following the news to be a personal civic responsibility, but today it can feel like a firehose of disinformation, bias, and negativity, making us want to turn away. There’s even a term for this: News Avoidance Syndrome. In this five-session course taught by Rabbi Josh Feigelson and Jane Eisner, we’ll explore Jewish mindfulness practices to help us stay awake, aware, and engaged with the news while maintaining a sense of balance and not becoming overwhelmed.

Register Now

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

$349

Register

Basic Level

$249

Register

Reduced Level

$149

Register

Meet Your Instructors:

Rabbi Josh Feigelson

Josh was appointed Executive Director of IJS in January 2020 and became President & CEO in April 2022. He received ordination from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School in 2005, and served for six years as the Hillel Rabbi at Northwestern University, where he also earned a PhD in Religious Studies. In 2011, Josh helped found and served as Executive Director of Ask Big Questions, an initiative of Hillel International, which won the inaugural Lippman-Kanfer Prize for Applied Jewish Wisdom. Josh has also been a consultant and Senior Fellow at The iCenter for Israel Education. Most recently he served as Dean of Students at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Josh is a Wexner Graduate Fellow and was the founding co-chair of the Wexner Fellowship Alumni Committee. He is the author of Eternal Questions: Reflections, Conversations, and Jewish Mindfulness Practices for the Weekly Torah Portion (Ben Yehuda Press, 2022). Josh lives with his wife Natalie and their three sons in Skokie, IL.

Jane Eisner

Jane Eisner is an accomplished journalist, educator, consultant, and public speaker. Her book Carole King: She Made the Earth Move will be published in September 2025 by Yale University Press. For more than a decade, she was the Forward’s editor-in-chief, the first woman to lead America’s foremost Jewish publication. She has held academic positions at Columbia Journalism School, University of Pennsylvania, and Wesleyan University. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other publications.

Among her many volunteer activities, she is a board member of the Hebrew Free Loan Society, chair of the Binswanger Committee at Wesleyan, and a member if the IJS Advisory Council. She lives in New York with her husband, Dr Mark Berger, and together they have three adult daughters.

The Four Worlds of Kabbalah: A Mindfulness-Based Introduction

The Four Worlds of Kabbalah: A Mindfulness-Based Introduction

Jul 28, 2025

The Four Worlds of Kabbalah:

A Mindfulness-Based Introduction

Registration is Now Closed

Sign Up to Be Notified When Registration Opens

Are you….

  • Curious how Jewish spirituality and mindfulness might benefit you?
  • Seeking a practical and accessible introduction to Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism?
  • Interested in adding a Jewish dimension to your meditation practice?
  • Wondering what’s Jewish about mindfulness?

The Four Worlds of Kabbalah: A Mindfulness-based Introduction is an accessible and practical introduction to mindful Jewish living grounded in the model of the “Four Worlds”—which locates the sacred in our bodies, emotions, thoughts, and spirit. Together, we’ll awaken to our essential divinity and cultivate a greater sense of wholeness.

Whether you are new to mindfulness or are a longtime spiritual seeker, this online course taught by Rebecca Schisler and Sam Feinsmith will explore a uniquely Jewish approach to meditation and mysticism that can support you to live, with greater awareness, resilience, and authenticity.

Through online materials and weekly live practice sessions, be part of a supportive community of practice growing habits of body, heart, mind, and spirit to foster personal and collective well-being and align with your deepest, most authentic self. All live sessions will be recorded and include closed captioning.

Learning about the Four Worlds of Kabbalah will support you in this process by helping you to:

  • Become more attuned and awake to your inner life in its richness and subtlety
  • Grow in awareness of your body, emotions, thoughts and spirit as gateways to spiritual living
  • Live with greater intentionality, awareness, and presence
  • Learn a foundational Kabbalistic map for the cultivating consciousness and well-being
  • Experience yourself as an innately divine being held in the embrace of unconditional love
  • Develop habits of heart, mind, and body that support your capacity to practice self-care, respond wisely and compassionately to life’s challenges, and thrive
  • Practice essential skills for cultivating and developing a personal Jewish spiritual practice grounded in mindfulness

Note: If you have already taken Awaken: Essential Jewish Mindfulness, this course will cover the same material with some adaptations and additions.

Registration is Now Closed

Please submit your name and email address and we will inform you once new course dates are released.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Name

Meet Your Instructors:

Rebecca Schisler

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, Wilderness Torah, Pardes, Stanford School of Medicine, Urban Adamah, Hamakom, and the Awakened Heart Project. 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. Rebecca currently lives in the California Bay Area, where she maintains a lively studio art practice as the artist-in-residence at the JCC East Bay, loves to host Jewish gatherings of all kinds, and tries to lose herself among her neighboring redwood trees as much as possible. Learn more at www.rebeccaschisler.com.

Rabbi Sam Feinsmith

Rabbi Sam Feinsmith has been immersed in Jewish contemplative living, learning, and teaching for over twenty years, conducting Jewish meditation workshops, programs, and retreats for children, teens, Jewish educators, clergy, and community leaders. He’s passionate about practicing and teaching meditation and making the spiritual teachings of Hasidism available to all. He received an MA in Talmud and Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and rabbinic ordination from YCT Rabbinical School. He also trained as a Jewish mindfulness meditation teacher with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training Program. Sam lives on the land of the Council of the Three Fires – the Potowatami, Ojibwe, and Odawa tribes – currently known as Evanston, IL with his wife Sarah-Bess and daughter Elanit. 

The Four Worlds of Kabbalah: A Mindfulness-Based Introduction

The Four Worlds of Kabbalah: A Mindfulness-Based Introduction

Jul 28, 2025

The Four Worlds of Kabbalah:

A Mindfulness-Based Introduction

October 22 – November 19, 2025

Five Live Zoom Sessions
Wednesdays, 3:00 – 4:15 PM ET

Click Here to Register

Join us for an accessible and practical introduction to mindful Jewish practice grounded in Jewish mysticism’s model of the “four worlds”—finding holiness in our bodies, emotions, thoughts, and spirit. Together, we’ll awaken to our essential divinity and help achieve a greater sense of wholeness. Whether you are new to mindfulness or are a longtime spiritual seeker, this online course will help you explore a uniquely Jewish approach to meditation and mysticism that can support you in living more holistically, with greater awareness, resilience, and authenticity. Through online materials and weekly live practice sessions, be part of a supportive community of practice, learn habits to foster personal and collective well-being, and align with your deepest, most authentic self.

Register Now

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

$299

Register

Basic Level

$199

Register

Reduced Level

$99

Register

Meet Your Instructors:

Rebecca Schisler

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, Wilderness Torah, Pardes, Stanford School of Medicine, Urban Adamah, Hamakom, and the Awakened Heart Project. 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. Rebecca currently lives in the California Bay Area, where she maintains a lively studio art practice as the artist-in-residence at the JCC East Bay, loves to host Jewish gatherings of all kinds, and tries to lose herself among her neighboring redwood trees as much as possible.

Rabbi Sam Feinsmith

Rabbi Sam Feinsmith has been immersed in Jewish contemplative living, learning, and teaching for over twenty years, conducting Jewish meditation workshops, programs, and retreats for children, teens, Jewish educators, clergy, and community leaders. He’s passionate about practicing and teaching meditation and making the spiritual teachings of Hasidism available to all. He received an MA in Talmud and Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and rabbinic ordination from YCT Rabbinical School. He also trained as a Jewish mindfulness meditation teacher with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training Program. Sam lives on the land of the Council of the Three Fires – the Potowatami, Ojibwe, and Odawa tribes – currently known as Evanston, IL with his wife Sarah-Bess and daughter Elanit. 

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The Gift of Awareness

The Gift of Awareness

Jul 28, 2025

The Gift of Awareness

Cultivating Mindfulness Through Jewish Meditation

REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN

Discover the Jewish Practice That Wakes You Up to the Magic and Meaning of Your Life

When is the last time you remember being fully present – not worrying about the past or anxiously planning for the future – just available to appreciate all the goodness of the moment?

It’s probably easier to recall the last time you arrived at work and then didn’t remember driving there. Or finishing a meal not having tasted a single bite.

Or being so preoccupied during a conversation with a friend, spouse or co-worker that you couldn’t really listen to them or remember anything they said.

If so, you’re not alone.

Today most of us regularly experience being so lost in our thoughts, distracted on our phones, and caught-up in our never-ending to-do lists that we aren’t really experiencing our lives in the present moment.

We have a tendency to think – and our culture reinforces – that doing more and achieving more is what will bring our lives into alignment with our core values and what matters most to us.

Access a More Relaxed, Restorative Way of Being That Offers a Deeper and More Meaningful Life Experience

You Can Start with Just 5 Minutes a Day

You may already recognize that you need some support managing your stress, being more present, reinvigorating your connection to Judaism, and skillfully navigating the challenges in your life and in the world.

You’ve likely heard mindfulness is helping others, but may not have figured out how to make it work for you. And you may not realize that you can practice mindfulness within a Jewish context . . . in a way that makes mindfulness accessible, familiar and perhaps even more meaningful to you—in addition to potentially creating new and possibly unexpected connections to Judaism itself.

That’s why the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, a global leader in teaching Jewish mindfulness and spiritual practices, has created The Gift of Awareness: Cultivating Mindfulness Through Jewish Meditation a first-of-its-kind, self-paced, online Jewish meditation course that offers new access to expanded awareness to support you in becoming more consistently who you want to be in the world . . . all from the comfort and convenience of your own home.

Here’s how it works . . . during The Gift of Awareness, mindfulness educators Rabbi Sam Feinsmith and Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell will expertly guide you each step of the way through establishing a Jewish mindfulness meditation practice that can support you in:

  • Showing up non-reactively in your life
  • Finding ways to deal skillfully with your inner critic
  • Finding an anchor of peace and positivity in stressful situations
  • Reawakening or deepening your connection to Judaism
  • Being a powerful example of resiliency, empathy and connection in your life and in the world

With regular practice – even for just 5 minutes a day – you can gain access to an inner refuge or sanctuary that you can take with you wherever you go . . .

So that no matter the circumstances you may find yourself in, no matter how stressful and strenuous your responsibilities may become, you can always discern a subtle quality of awareness hovering in the backdrop and permeating your experience of body, heart, mind and world.

Here’s What People Who’ve Established a Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Practice Tell Us About How It’s Transformed Their Lives

“Before I came to IJS and took the course, I thought my yoga meditation that I practiced before classes was all that there was to meditation. During the course, I experienced a deeper inner look into myself and was surprised that feelings of loss that I had suppressed surfaced. Now that I’ve experienced The Gift of Awareness, my life is calmer and I realize that I can live at a bit of a slower pace, be more aware and present, be a better listener, and still get the things done that matter to me.”

Marlene Aron

“IJS has changed my life. I know it sounds dramatic. But I want everyone to know what I now know – our Jewish Hassidic wisdom has deepened my prayer, my meditation and my mindset. Even more essentially, because of IJS I have changed the way I speak to myself, which has changed everything.”

Aliza Kline

“Jewish spiritual practice has made me so much more spiritually alive. It inspired me. Refreshed me. Many of us go to yoga, meditate and are looking for spiritual practices to help us in our lives. What I didn’t know is that I could do all of that within the context of Jewish prayer and tradition—and that it would be so much more meaningful as a result.”

Rabbi Rachel Timoner

The Gift of Awareness
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:

  • Video teachings with Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell
  • A text study with Rabbi Sam Feinsmith
  • A guided meditation
  • A mindful life practice
  • Reflection questions and discussion forums
  • A supplemental handout

Each session builds on the next so that you feel relaxed, inspired, and confident in each new skill before moving onto the next.

Module One:

Waking Up to Your Life
From Automatic Pilot to Intention

Module Two:

Strengthening Attention
From Distracted to Present  

Module Three:

Listening to Your Body 
From Thinking to Sensing

Once you have finished the first three modules you may notice . . .

  • You’ve begun moving through your life more intentionally, instead of being on automatic pilot
  • You find it easier to anchor your attention to be more present
  • You’ve become better able to notice your mental habits and unsupportive thought patterns that habitually move you into reactivity and away from feeling calm and centered.

Module Four:

Turning Towards the Stream of Your Emotions
From Reactivity to Responsiveness

Module Five:

Working with Difficult Emotions
From Avoidance to Approaching

Once you have finished Modules Four and Five you may notice . . .

  • You’re better able to identify emotions in your body, such as “Oh, I must be feeling sadness because there’s sensation in the pit of my stomach” or “My face is flushing, which means I’m feeling angry.”
  • You’re more in tune with your emotions and able to know precisely what you’re feeling moment by moment, instead of having only a vague sense of ease or uneasiness.
  • You’re more able to cultivate non-judgemental attention to your own emotions, allowing you to be more responsive instead of getting stuck in emotionality and reactivity.

Module Six:

Befriending Your Own Mind
From Conviction to Curiosity

Module Seven:

Cultivating Your Loving Heart
From Judgment to Compassion

Module Eight:

Resting in Shabbat Mind™
From Doing to Being

Once you have finished Module Six you may notice . . .

  • You’re more able to be the observer of your thoughts and the student of your habits instead of believing those thoughts and habits are what define you.
  • As you realize more clearly that you’re not actually your thoughts and mental habits, you become more in touch with who you really are.

Once you have finished Module Seven you may notice . . .

  • You’re better able to cultivate loving emotions when you need them — the kind of emotions that open the heart and leave the mind feeling spacious and connected.
  • You’re better able to skillfully handle emotions (like anger) that distort your ability to see clearly.

Once you have finished Module Eight you may notice . . .

  • You’re better able to de-stress, regulate and strengthen your attention, and practice emotional self-regulation.
  • You feel more resourced, restored and supported as you do your work and live your life.
  • You’re able to meet others (and yourself) with a deeper quality of love, compassion and acceptance.
  • You have access in any moment to what Shabbat represents — peaceful awareness that you need to do nothing else or be anywhere else.
  • That practice grounded in Jewish wisdom has changed your relationship with Judaism and possibly even God.

Course Materials and Resources

When you register, you’ll get access to everything you need to take full advantage of the self-paced course, including:

  • 8 self-paced video teaching sessions, guided meditation “practices” and reflection questions – that you can access anywhere, anytime from your computer or mobile device.
  • Downloadable handouts for each module – so you can reference these powerful teachings anytime.
  • An online meditation timer you can load with your favorite guided meditations from the course – so you can practice them again and again.
  • 8 “Mindful Life” practices – designed to help you integrate the course teachings into your everyday life.
  • A personal online journal – your own personal space to record your reflections.

The Gift of Awareness

Course Tuition

$249

Purchase to get access to everything you need
to take full advantage of this self-paced course

Register Now

About Rabbi Sam Feinsmith

As Senior Core Faculty at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, Rabbi Sam Feinsmith directs the Clergy Leadership Program and teaches on the faculty of a variety of IJS programs. Previously, he taught Judaic Studies at Chicagoland Jewish High School, Illinois, and the Heschel School in NY, where he spearheaded initiatives to foster teen spirituality, mindfulness, and wellness. He is a co-founder of Orot: Center for New Jewish Learning, a center for contemplative Jewish learning and living. He served as a Kol Tzedek Fellow for American Jewish World Service, volunteering in Cambodia with their Volunteer Corps.

About Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell

Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell is a teacher of Jewish mindfulness and has spent years leading retreats and immersive experiences for adults in various settings through the National Ramah Commission, Orot: Center for New Jewish Learning, and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. Jordan was the founding Director of Ramah Beyond and was Director of Camp Ramah in Canada from 2019-2022. Previously, he worked for the Institute for Jewish Spirituality (IJS) as a teacher of Jewish Mindfulness and as Director of the Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training. Jordan also taught meditation to rabbis and cantors through IJS’ Clergy Leadership Program. After being ordained in 2008, Jordan served as a congregational rabbi outside of Chicago and co-founded Orot: Center for New Jewish Learning. Jordan is a recipient of the 2014 Covenant Foundation Pomegranate Prize. He and his wife Yael live in Toronto and are the proud and grateful parents of three.

About the Institute for Jewish Spirituality

Since 1999, IJS has been a leader in teaching traditional and contemporary Jewish spiritual practices that cultivate mindfulness so that each of us might act with enriched wisdom, clarity, and compassion. These practices, grounded in Jewish values and thought, enable participants to develop important skills while strengthening leadership capacities, deepening their inner lives, and connecting more meaningfully with others, Judaism, and the sacred. As a non-profit organization, IJS is able to provide programming and resources to the community thanks to the generosity of our donors.

Awareness in Action

Awareness in Action

Jul 28, 2025

Awareness in Action

Cultivating Character Through Mindfulness and Middot

Registration Now Open

Click Here to Register Now

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:

 

    1. Loving connection (chesed)
    2. Setting wise boundaries for yourself and others (gevurah)
    3. A balanced self – taking up appropriate space and time (anavah)
    4. Energetic response – so you can get started and keep going (zerizut)
    5. Gratitude (hodayah)
    6. Righteousness – developing your capacity to do what is appropriate and just (tzedek)
    7. Mindful speech (sh’mirat hadibbur)
    8. 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.”

Dan Kaplan

Evanston, IL

“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.”

Cantor Meredith Greenberg

Montclair NJ

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:

 

    • 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

Register Now

Basic Level

$299

Register Now

Supported Level

$149

Register Now

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