Awareness in Action for the Omer
Awareness in Action for the Omer
Cultivating Character Through Mindfulness and MiddotJoin the Entire IJS Faculty to Learn
The Jewish Practice That Helps You Be Your "Best Self"
March 25 – May 20
*Wednesdays from 2:00-3:15 pm ET
March 25, 30 (Monday*), April 6 (Monday*), 15, 22, 29, May 6, 13, 20
This special edition tikkun middot practice will feature teachings, texts, and practices by each of our core faculty: Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell, Rabbi Josh Feigelson, Rabbi Sam Feinsmith, Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife, Rabbi Miriam Margles, Rabbi Marc Margolius, and Rebecca Schisler.
In challenging times like these, we can be reactive and defensive rather than showing up as our best selves. Too often flooded by turbulent emotions, we may regret our words and actions, wishing we might have paused and responded more wisely and effectively. When we are dispirited by the world, we need spiritual connection more than ever.
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, wise boundaries, humility, and gratitude. Every one of us naturally possesses these traits. For many reasons, though, our innate spiritual and ethical qualities can become blocked, causing us to behave in ways that miss the mark.
Tikkun middot practice teaches us ways to uncover our best selves — our true selves — and to be the person we wish to be in both the small and large actions of daily life… in difficult conversations, in traffic and meetings, in interactions with family and friends – whenever life is particularly challenging.
Bringing mindfulness practice more deeply into your life
Our faculty will expertly guide you each step of the way through establishing 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 How This Course Transformed 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
A Session-by-Session Course Overview
Here’s a closer look at everything you’ll cover:
Module One
Loving Connection: Chesed
Open yourself 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: Anavah
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 8 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.
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
Basic Level
$249
Reduced Level
$149
Meet Your 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.
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. Prior to joining IJS he served as Dean of Students at the University of Chicago Divinity School. 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.
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.
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 is a Core Faculty Member with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality; she also enjoys working with Jewish Studio Project and Kirva among other national Jewish organisations. Additionally, she delights in serving as a facilitator, teacher, life spiral ceremony/ritual creatrix, shlichat tzibbur, liturgist and songstress. Her work in these realms is informed by her lived experience as a queer, bi-racial, child-free Jewish person living with chronic illness, 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.
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
Marc developed and teaches in our newest online course, Awareness in Action: Cultivating Character through Mindfulness and Middot. He also spearheads the daily online meditations that IJS developed as part of our response to the coronavirus pandemic. He directs our immersive programming for lay leaders and works closely with our clergy alumni as director of the Hevraya program. Marc authored several years of IJS’s weekly Text Study, exploring the weekly portion through mindfulness and middot.
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.
