The Peaceful Parent Project® with Orot: Center for New Jewish Learning

The Peaceful Parent Project® with Orot: Center for New Jewish Learning

Nov 20, 2025

The Peaceful Parent Project® with Orot:

Center for New Jewish Learning

January – February, 2026

6 Live Zoom Sessions

Click Here to Register

This is your opportunity to take a course with IJS and Orot: Center for New Jewish Learning. These programs (with separate cohorts for parents and grandparents) integrate Jewish text study, discussion, and guided mindfulness practice to nourish families during challenging times and help you bring more compassion and Jewish wisdom into your home. Parents will learn to reshape interactions with children, creating a more spiritually connected and mindful bond. Grandparents will learn practices to deepen connections with adult children and grandchildren and infuse family moments with sacredness and tranquility.

Meet Your Instructor:

Rebecca Minkus Lieberman

Bio

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

Practice with Rodger Kamenetz

January 14 – February 11, 2026

Five online sessions Wednesdays, 2:00 – 3:15 PM ET

January 14, 21, 28, February 4, 11

Plus access to a dedicated WhatsApp group for sharing blessings, perceptions, and dream moments.

Click Here to Register

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.

Register Now

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

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 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.

Reserve Your Spot

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 18, 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.

Mindful Jewish Leadership in the Face of Antisemitism: Trauma-Informed Practice for Healing and Wise Response

Mindful Jewish Leadership in the Face of Antisemitism: Trauma-Informed Practice for Healing and Wise Response

Nov 17, 2025

Mindful Jewish Leadership in the Face of Antisemitism:

Trauma-Informed Practice for Healing and Wise Response

 

A program for Jewish Clergy and Professionals

Practice with Rabbi Miriam Margles and Rabbi Caryn Aviv, PhD

February 4 – March 25, 2026

Eight online sessions on Wednesdays

Opening Retreat: Wednesday February 4, 2:00pm-5:00pm ET

Weekly Live Sessions: Wednesdays, February 11- March 18, 3:30pm-5:00pm ET

Closing Retreat: Wednesday, March 25, 2:00pm-5:00pm ET

As Jewish leaders, how do we respond mindfully to the corrosive impact of anti-Jewish contempt, bigotry, and bias during these challenging times, attending to our own wounds while discerning wise action and healing our communities?

Click Here to Register

The experience of being a Jew in the world has radically altered since October 7, 2023. The demands on Jewish leaders have been overwhelming – to be sources of stability and comfort, moral guidance, public voice, leaders in community organizing, conflict resolution, and intergenerational healing.  While supporting our communities, few Jewish leaders have had the support or space to process our own grief, anger, fear, betrayal, and moral anguish. 

Many leaders express feeling exhausted, isolated, and ill-equipped to address the complex challenges we face – including surging antisemitism in North America and around the world. There is a deep and unmet need to understand and heal  the corrosive impact of present-day antisemitism and intergenerational Jewish trauma on our minds, hearts, and souls, and on the Jewish people as a whole.

Now more than ever, it’s essential that Jewish leaders cultivate mindful, spiritually grounded, and agile leadership.

Join us for an innovative program to support you in responding to the complexities with greater wisdom and clarity. Instead of living in perpetual alarm, defensiveness, numbness, or reactivity, you can learn to settle your nervous system, nurture inner stability and self-awareness, surface curiosity, and find grounding in Jewish sources of strength, connection and resilience. 

The course will begin and end with 3-hour retreats for immersive practice, learning and building relationships. The closing retreat will focus on empowering participants to model and teach these tools and approaches in our various communities. 

Now more than ever, it’s essential to cultivate mindful, spiritually grounded, agile, and effective leadership.

Jewish leaders and communities can learn the concepts and practices to access greater wisdom, agility and compassion to respond mindfully while rooted in our values.

Trauma-Informed Holistic Approach

In this unique program integrating theory and practice, you will explore: 

The Dynamics of Anti-Jewish Oppression

    • Understand the culturally pervasive dynamics of anti-Jewish oppression in the context of other systemic oppressions.

The Dynamics of Ancestral Jewish Trauma

    • Understand the dynamics of internalized ancestral Jewish trauma and vicarious trauma. 
    • Identify how intergenerational wounds and survival strategies are at play within us and those we serve. 
    • Recognize and soothe Jewish anxiety habits related to safety, worth, and belonging.

 

Share your struggles, questions, and uncertainties in a cohort of trusted colleagues.

Mindfulness-Based Practices for Self-Awareness & Emotional Regulation

    • Pause from the urgency, overwhelm, and isolation of needing to constantly respond, strategize, solve, and support.
    • Learn how our brains and bodies respond to the specific triggers of antisemitic rhetoric and behavior.
    • Strengthen nervous system regulation; develop greater capacity to be present with and metabolize intense and difficult emotions rather than react or blow our pain onto others;

Jewish Spiritual Practice

    • Explore Jewish wisdom, mindfulness-based Jewish spiritual practice to cultivate inner stability, vitality and spiritual grounding; deepen the middot (Jewish spiritual qualities) of clear perception, equanimity, curiosity, compassion, and resilience.
    • Engage in contemplative prayer and song, ritual, and spiritual wisdom from a range of Jewish sources to draw on the inheritance of ancestral Jewish strength, creativity, joy, moral courage, love, and community.
    • Explore ways to integrate insights and practices into our communities.

 

Trauma-Informed Holistic Approach

Participants in the pilot for this program (run in Winter 2024) had this to say:

 

“It gave me a chance to be sad for myself and grieve. That is a rare thing: our community encourages us to be advocates. Hearing the texture of everyone else’s hard time gave me the space to describe my own experience. It was a gift to be able to be witnessed by this group.“

2024 Pilot Program Participant

“It was significant seeing how responses to antisemitism from within Jewish community create real stress and challenge. No matter what we do, we’re upsetting people. It’s very fraught and leaders need support to be wise and grounded and not reactive.”

2024 Pilot Program Participant

“I was self-aware enough to see it happening— I know about my lack of resilience, feeling weathered, how I anticipate conflicts, and stew about what I would say. But now I have tools to manage myself. The workshop has given me an offramp and it’s worked. Rather than dwelling on a negative confrontation, I am spending less time stewing.”

2024 Pilot Program Participant

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 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. Her career has included service 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. Miriam’s album, Zeh HaYom – this is the day, is available at: https://miriammargles.bandcamp.com/

Rabbi Caryn Aviv

Rabbi Caryn Aviv, PhD

Rabbi Caryn Aviv serves as Rabbinic director at Judaism Your Way in Denver, CO. She’s a recovering academic in sociology and Jewish studies, and (mostly) formerly anxious Jew. She creates spaces, rituals, and practices that offer safety, healing, equity, compassion and justice for Jews, our loved ones, friends, and allies.  Caryn recently published Unlearning Jewish Anxiety: How to Live with More Joy and Suffer Less (Monkfish, 2026).  

Wise Aging Through Jewish Mindfulness

Wise Aging Through Jewish Mindfulness

Nov 16, 2025

Wise Aging Through Jewish Mindfulness

Practice with Rabbi Marc Margolis and Karen Frank

February 12 – March 26, 2026

6 Live Zoom Sessions

Thursdays, 4:00-5:15pm ET | Feb 12, 19, 26, March 5, 12, 26

Click Here to Register

How can Jewish mindfulness help us extract and expand the wisdom of the latter stages of our lives? Based on Wise Aging, the now-classic book by Rabbi Rachel Cowan and Linda Thal, this six-week program will immerse participants in a community of ongoing mindfulness practice, reflection, and connection. Together, we’ll explore how meditation and mindfulness can help us meet physical and emotional challenges, learn to grow in acceptance of ourselves and others, deepen our friendships and familial relationships, live with greater joy, gratitude, and resilience, and shape a legacy for the future.

Learn how Jewish mindfulness practice can help you embrace aging as a spiritual practice, enabling you to access your deepest wisdom.

  • Learn tools and practices for exploring – and celebrating – the latter stage of our lives.
  • Connect deeply with others on the same trajectory.
  • Nurture your capacity to counter the “declinist” view of aging – the ageism that pervades society and which we too often internalize.
  • Cultivate equanimity about the aging process.
  • Clarify your understanding of your essential, most authentic self.
  • Develop your capacity simply to be, rather than to seek meaning only in productivity and accomplishment.
  • Identify those aspects of your life and identity which no longer serve you
  • Strengthen your ability to release these to the past.
  • Celebrate and Share the wisdom which you have developed over a lifetime.
Reserve Your Spot

Components of the Course

Week 1: Obstacle Ahead: The Declinist View of Aging

Week 2:  Approaching Aging with Curiosity

Week 3: Rediscovering Your Authentic Self

Week 4:  Integrating Shabbat Consciousness: Being, Not Doing

Week 5:  Releasing That Which We No Longer Need

Week 6:  Celebrating our Lives, and Next Steps

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

$399

Register

Basic Level

$299

Register

Reduced Level

$199

Register

Meet Your Instructors:

Rabbi Marc Margolius

Rabbi Marc Margolius is a Senior Core Faculty member at IJS and  serves as advisor for overall programming for IJS. He directs programming for lay leaders and Hevraya, the alumni of our Clergy Leadership Program. He hosts the “Daily Sit,” IJS’s online daily mindfulness meditation sessions, and teaches several courses, 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.

Karen Frank

Karen Frank has been a congregational nurse to several synagogues in New Jersey and a facilitator for Wise Aging since the early 2000s. Additionally, she, Rabbi Rachel Cowan z”l, and Dr. Linda Thal trained over 600 facilitators for the Wise Aging program nationally. She ardently believes that participating in the program encourages equanimity, mindfulness, and contentment in the aging process. Her work as a pastoral care nurse, Wise Aging facilitator, meditator, and Jewish Spiritual Director meld beautifully to assist people in aging, confronting disease, and coping with the challenges of our time.

Karen holds degrees in psychology, nursing, and certification in Jewish Spiritual Direction. She lives in Denville, NJ, is widowed, and is the mother of four adults.

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

Practice with Anya Kamenetz

February 26 – March 26, 2026

Live Session Dates | Feb 26, March 5, 12, 19, 26

Thursdays, 7:30 – 8:45 PM ET

Click Here to Register

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.
Reserve Your Spot
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.
Reserve Your Spot

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”

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 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.

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.