Call of the Shofar 5786
A Study and Practice Group for Younger Adults
August 17-September 8, 2026
A FREE 4-week program led by Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife and Rebecca Schisler
Monday, August 17
Tuesdays, August 25, September 1, 8
8:00-9:15 PM ET, live on Zoom
Course at a Glance
Awaken from spiritual autopilot this Elul with our four-week mindfulness journey for younger adults (20s-30s). Grounded in the core themes of Rosh Hashanah—renewal, awe, release, and mindful action—this free program will help you prepare your inner life for the Jewish New Year. We’ll have live practice, guided meditations, and contemplative text study to help you meet the holidays with conscious intention.
We invite you to enter into a powerful journey of returning to our most authentic selves.
The shofar blasts through all of Elul, the final month of the Jewish year, like a cosmic alarm clock awakening us from spiritual autopilot and nudging us toward reflection and honest soul-accounting. Once again, the IJS Shofar Project will help us prepare our inner lives for the upcoming Jewish New Year. This year, the IJS faculty will offer NEW materials over four weeks, each week grounded in a key theme of the High Holidays. Each week, the program will include guided text study, suggested mindfulness practices to do on your own, an option to connect in chevruta, and live practice sessions with Rebecca Schisler and Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife.
Course Description for this Free Program
Over four weeks, The Shofar Project this year will feature BRAND NEW materials, each week featuring a live practice session (Wednesdays) and written materials – including texts, meditations, and suggested practices – grounded in a key theme of Rosh Hashanah:
Week One, HaYom Harat Olam, Today, the World is Born, with Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife:
A week for connecting with the ever-present sacred power of renewal and change, letting ourselves dream and imagine new possibilities for ourselves and our world.
Week Three, Zichronot, Remembering/Releasing, with Rabbi Sam Feinsmith:
Loosening the grip of old patterns – personal and collective – that we’ve outgrown and ready to move beyond.
Week Two, Malkuyot, Cultivating Awe and Wonder, with Rabbi Marc Margolius:
Getting curious about what we’ve really been orienting our lives around – and whether there’s something more meaningful to turn towards, for ourselves and the world.
Week Four, Shofarot, Called to Mindful Action, with Rabbi Miriam Margles
A week for waking up to what we are truly being called to, nurturing our hope, and finding the courage to make our visions real.
Together we breathe, together we change, together we grow.
Testimonials
“Thank you Keshira and Rebecca for guiding us through this journey so lovingly. Thanks everyone for being present and brave throughout this process 🙏🏾”
“For me it’s a lot about the people! Just soaking up wisdom from anyone & everyone. So much honesty that people shared with one another.”
“For me, it’s a paradigm shift to understand mindfulness meditation as teshuva.”
“I loved the meditations and the breakout rooms, connecting with other young adults in small groups and sharing.”
“I meditate pretty much every day at lunch for ~ 10 minutes. Today I did the Teshuvah practice and it felt so grounding to be honoring both this time of Elul specifically and my Jewishness more generally in my daily practice. So grateful to you all!”
Meet Your Instructors:
Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife
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.
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.