Institute for Jewish Spirituality – To create a fellowship program that will cultivate a new generation of master Jewish mindfulness and spirituality educators to lead the field with enhanced teaching and practice.

Is there a Jewish text you often turn to when you’re teaching mindfulness practices?

I often turn to a teaching of the Hasidic teacher, the Sefat Emet, who connects the biblical Noah with menuchah (Shabbat rest). He teaches that we can take refuge in time just as Noah took refuge in the ark. Inside this sanctuary, we find respite from the world’s chaos and receive chayut, or life energy. This serves as a powerful metaphor for mindfulness practice: regardless of the day, we can find refuge within the present moment as an “ark.” Finding this calm amidst stormy seas allows us to be stable, wise, and responsive rather than reactive.

How can Jewish mindfulness and spirituality help support the Jewish community through these trying times?

Jewish mindfulness provides practical tools to remain present amidst constant change. Regular practice builds the internal “muscles” necessary to maintain meaning and connection, regardless of external turmoil. I like to compare this to training in a gym: we strengthen our legs during a workout so we can walk more firmly through the rest of our lives. In dedicated periods of mindfulness practice, we can build our capacity for remaining calm and present, and we can then bring that calm and presence into the rest of our lives. Furthermore, by experiencing mindfulness as a Jewish practice, we tap into a millennia-old wellspring of wisdom that has sustained our ancestors through their own periods of profound difficulty.

What’s something you’ve learned from practicing and teaching Jewish mindfulness and spirituality that surprised you?

One thing that has surprised me is that while mindfulness can feel exotic or “new,” it is actually deeply woven into our own texts. We don’t need to look only to the heavens or distant traditions; as Deuteronomy 30 reminds us, “[the words of God] are very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart.” I have come to realize that mindful presence isn’t a foreign concept to be imported, but a sensibility already close to us. It was a revelation to find such a sensibility of profound stillness right in the center of mainstream Jewish wisdom, and right in my life as it is.