Healing the Jewish Self

After more than a quarter century as a rabbi, I am convinced of the worthiness and richness of pursuing a Jewish path (and there are many possible expressions of that path.) And yet so many of us are ambivalent about our Jewish identity. Perhaps we suffer from “Post-Traumatic Synagogue Disorder”, having been raised in a spiritually empty house of worship that was dramatically dissonant with our own experience of the sacred. Perhaps we assumed that Judaism was too tribal, and we longed for the universal. Perhaps the terror of the Holocaust loomed too large. Perhaps no one ever even showed us how to begin.

“Healing the Jewish Self” is a workshop refined over the past 30 years that offers us a radically safe, welcoming and accepting space to explore our Jewish identities, even the painful parts, and to shed light on those shadowed and sometimes hidden places of doubt, criticism and pain.

In this transformative workshop, through lecture and discussion, interpersonal sharing, joyous Shabbat services, spiritual teaching from the Jewish tradition, visualization, creative movement, and song, participants can explore their relationship to Judaism in a safe, confidential, and “judgment-free” environment. By identifying and exploring the negative stereotypes we have absorbed as Jews, we will grow in love and compassion for ourselves and for one another.

There is not some single “right” way to be a Jew. This workshop will help you be the Jew that you would like to be, choosing today rather than reacting to the past. Whether you are a first-timer or have attended this workshop before, you’ll thank yourself for coming.