Institute for Jewish Spirituality

08/21/2026

Meditation Sit

08/20/2026

The fall holidays are an opportunity to connect deeply with ourselves and our surroundings, but often the stress of the logistics keep us from being truly present.

Join us and faculty members Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell and Rebecca Schisler and give yourself the gift this holiday season of returning to yourself.

This class will teach about how to mindfully engage with Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot.

Learn more and register here: https://bit.ly/4x9X2MZ

08/20/2026

Meditation Sit

08/19/2026

Meditation Sit

08/18/2026

🧩Join IJS for our monthly session of Shalem (“Whole”), an inclusive affinity space for people living with disabilities and/or chronic illness and pain. Led by Rabbi Julia Watts Belser this month, we’ll gather in caring community for mindful Jewish practice - exploring ways to nurture healing, affirm our wholeness, and cultivate inner resilience.

🌿Rabbi Julia Watts Belser is a scholar, spiritual teacher, and longtime activist for disability, LGBTQ+, and gender justice. Her latest book, Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole, won a National Jewish Book Award and the Grawemeyer Award in Religion. She is a professor of Jewish Studies and Disability Studies at Georgetown University and a Senior Research Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. She is also an avid wheelchair hiker, a passionate birdwatcher, and a lover of wild places.

🔗Register for free here: https://bit.ly/459X1vG

08/18/2026

Weekly Shabbat Reflection from IJS President & CEO Rabbi Josh Feigelson:

Holding Lightly (Shoftim 5786)
"Among the reasons I wish my father was still alive is that I know how much he would delight in observing me coming to appreciate lessons he offered—and that I resisted in my youth, when, like plenty of others, I was convinced I knew everything better than he did. There are small things, like waiting to run the dishwasher until you have a full load. There are bigger things, like the chart he once drew for me plotting left- and right-wing political views on the horizontal axis, and democracy and autocracy on the vertical—a reminder of the limitations and imperfections of political parties, political systems, and human beings."

Read more here:

Before anything else, I want to say thank you to the many readers who wrote last week to offer their condolences on the loss of my cousin Julian. My family and I have been surrounded in love and support. It means the world to all of us. Thank you.

08/18/2026

Meditation Sit

08/16/2026

📯Wake yourself up for a new year! Starting tomorrow, it's not too late to sign up.

🍎Call of the Shofar will help guide you in preparing your inner and outer life for the New Year and High Holiday period gracefully. With weekly live sessions, text study, meditations, and community with other younger adults, you will emerge on the other side of Elul ready to take on the New Year.

🔗Don't wait, sign up today here: https://bit.ly/4pNv6eD

08/14/2026

Meditation Sit

08/13/2026

In Shoftim, we are reminded to notice how we can act with less reactivity in our lives.

Thank you to Jack Leopold for sharing this week's