The design for the Embodied Jewish Wisdom Teachers’ Network grew from our first ever Gather & Grow retreat, held in July 2019.
“Gather & Grow was exactly the experience I needed to feel confident in my path. Creative and embodied Jewish practice is real, it is cohesive, and it is greatly desired and needed. This work feels so potent and so much bigger than us. I am inspired to help it spread throughout the world however I can! " -Bri Rubin, Springboard Fellow - Innovation Specialist,
Long Beach Hillel, Long Beach, CA
Please see a description about this PAST offering below
Are you a teacher of movement and yoga in Jewish contexts?
Do you wonder how to strengthen your already amazing offerings?
Or do you wonder where to begin when designing a class or workshop?
Join us for our first ever West Coast Convening & Training at Westerbeke Ranch to learn, share and co-create community at a 3-day immersive retreat.
Continuing Education Credits Available with Yoga Alliance for Yoga Teachers
Faculty
Julie Emden
Julie Emden, E-RYT-500, Halprin Practitioner, infuses her work with exploration, spirit and joy. She is passionate about awakening the body as a gateway to deep inner knowing and guides others in somatic explorations of Jewish wisdom teachings as a resource for living in balance and wholeness. A graduate of five fellowship and teaching certification programs related to her work as a Jewish educator, Iyengar-based yoga instructor and movement/expressive artist, Julie has two decades of experience guiding others in exploring Jewish wisdom, text and practices via the body in a variety of settings. Julie offers classes, workshops, on-line learning, retreats, teacher trainings, individual coaching, and strategic consultation and guidance for Jewish Wellness Initiatives throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
Kohenet Aliza Rivka
Kohenet Aliza Rivka is a dance alchemist and Kohenet Hebrew priestess, dancing with you toward the life you desire. She weaves her training as a Board Certified Dance/Movement Therapist, Kohenet: Hebrew Priestess and lifelong dancer to create transformative movement experiences that honor the soul's truth through the body's language.
Rabbi Diane Elliot
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Rabbi Diane Elliot is a teacher, ritual leader, and spiritual director who inspires her students to become clearer channels for Presence through awareness and movement practices, chant, and nuanced interpretations of Jewish sacred text. Before beginning her rabbinic training at the Academy for Jewish Religion, California in 2000, she performed and taught modern and improvisational dance and trained intensively in multiple somatic modalities. She is a Certified Teacher and Practitioner of Body-Mind Centering®, a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist, and has maintained a private practice for more than 30 years. From 2011–2018 Rabbi Diane directed ALEPH’s Embodying Spirit, En-spiriting Body movement-based Jewish leadership trainings. She is currently on the stewardship team for the Taproot Gathering (https://www.commonweal.org/program/c3/taproot/) and continues to lead retreats and trainings nationally. Learn more about Diane at www.whollypresent.org.
Nancy Wolfson-Moche
Nancy Wolfson-Moche CHHC RYT-200, seeks to empower people to listen to their bodies through yoga, mindful cooking and eating, and other embodied practices. The founder of you are because you eat, Nancy counsels and teaches health, wellness and life skills to students of all ages through culinary medicine and sacred culinary arts. She weaves Torah, Jewish ritual, holidays and earth-based practices into a celebration of food and eating, inviting students to reimagine self-nourishment as an expression of spiritual connection and as a pathway to strengthening health and well-being. A former editor and writer on lifestyle magazines, Nancy’s articles have appeared in scores of magazines and newspapers. She is an emerging Kohenet. For more about Nancy visit youarebecauseyoueat.com.
Diane Bloomfield
Diane Bloomfield is the author of Torah Yoga: Experiencing Jewish Wisdom through Classic Postures. She lives in Jerusalem where she teaches ongoing Torah and Torah Yoga classes live and on the web. As well, Diane teaches Torah Yoga retreats and workshops in the United States at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center and other venues. Diane has learned Torah in Jerusalem since the mid-eighties. She is a certified Junior level Iyengar Yoga Instructor and a Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapist. She is currently working on her new book, Playing with Fire: Secret Torah Doorways to the Inner Self, Delight in a Distressed World. Learn more about Diane at http://torahyoga.com/page1-
Miriam Raziel Kanani
Miriam Raziel Kanani is a soulful singer/songwriter who blends reggae, jazz, and middle eastern compositions with spiritual lyrics that resonate with depth and truth. Her music has been described as rootsy, powerful, and hauntingly beautiful.
Miriam has performed her music in New York City, the Bay Area, Israel, Florida, and in the midwest. Miriam has performed with the band "Kirtan Rabbi" (www.kirtanrabbi.com) and other bands over the course of several years. Miriam lives in Berkeley, California with her husband Babak and daughter Ariyah and loves integrating her music and Jewish teachings into all realms of her life.
Registration Details
REFUND POLICY
If, after purchasing, you are unable to come to the convening, please let us know. If we have a waiting list, we will be happy to refund your ticket minus a $75 cancellation fee. If we do not have a waiting list, you will be responsible for selling your ticket to someone else.
REGISTRATION FEES include tuition and lodging for all meals, a two-night stay at beautiful Westerbeke Ranch, and access to all sessions and activities. Accommodations are shared in gorgeous light-filled redwood cabins with 2-4 people per room. The vegetarian meals are hand-made, locally sourced, and delicious. The grounds offer sweet gathering spots, a lush garden, meadows, ponds, walking, hiking and resting areas, a hot tub, labyrinth, and you can book a massage on-site (at your own expense) if you’d like!
Full Ticket: $995
Early Bird: $795 (by May 31)
Scholarship: $595 or less
If you need a scholarship, please see below.
Make it possible for others to attend with a tax-deductible donation.
Payment Plan: (with deposit by May 31)
Deposit by May 31: $295
Payment #1 by June 15: $250
Payment #2 by July 1: $250
TRANSPORTATION & SCHOLARSHIPS
Westerbeke is only an hour from the San Francisco Bay Area. See more on how to get to the Ranch HERE
We will set up a ride-sharing sheet for rides to/from SFO and Oakland Airports and other Bay Area locations.
SCHOLARSHIP ASSISTANCE FOR TRAVEL OR TUITION
Thanks to generous foundation and donor support, Embodied Jewish Learning is able to offer a limited amount of financial assistance to help make it possible for you to attend.
Applications for scholarship assistance are due by May 31 and participants will be notified of funding by June 6. Support will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis, and the application must be accompanied by a Deposit Ticket, which will be refunded (minus a $20 administrative website purchasing fee) if aid is not awarded.
Sample Schedule
Workshops
Longer workshop sessions specifically designed for teachers will be offered each day by Diane, Diane and/or Julie. These will include experiences of unique approaches to Embodied Jewish Wisdom, including teaching methodologies, question and answer sessions and/or skill-building. Shorter workshops will be offered by teachers of Embodied Jewish Wisdom and Practice in the mornings, as well as a mini-training from Sefaria Co-Founder Brett Lockspeiser, interspersed with experiences designed to cultivate Sacred Eating, Movement and Dance, Voice and Expression. Some sample descriptions follow below, and there are more to come!
Chassidic Torah Yoga Doorways to the Inner Self
Sfat Emet, the 19th century chassidic Rebbe from Ger, Poland taught that the words of Torah are engraved in the body of a person but are hidden and need to be discovered. Through the study of Torah and practice of Yoga we uncover the Torah that is engraved in our body, mind, heart and soul. A Torah Yoga practice, as well as basic tenets and ideas for teaching Torah Yoga will be offered by Diane Bloomfield in this experiential session.
Embodiment as a Jewish Spiritual Path
Rabbi Diane Elliot has spent the past 20 years integrating movement and somatic wisdom with more traditional approaches to Jewish prayer, ritual, mysticism, and sacred text. In this session she will share some of her methodology—which includes somatic exploration, improvisational dance, and Authentic Movement—through offering guided experiences of prayer and Torah learning. The session will include time for verbal reflections and questions.
Embodied Pardes
Experience Torah on all levels of being - mind, body, heart and soul in this experiential workshop with Julie Emden. Learn basic principles for designing classes infused with somatic references and kinesthetic qualities as they relate to text from Torah via Embodied Pardes, a unique methodology for Torah study through a kinesthetic lens, offered in Embodied Jewish Learning’s Teacher Training curriculum. This approach is applicable to all styles of yoga, dance or movement.
Body as Temple
Join Kohenet Aliza Rivka for a dance and movement journey honoring the body as temple. Explore sacred movement tools and a soundscape designed to connect us to our innate gifts. Experience your presence, your voice, and your unique expression as you listen to the Torah within, learn to resonate with your inner knowing and remember that all the answers are inside of you.
Sacred Eating
Throughout our time together, Nancy Wolfson-Moche will invite us to consider food as nourishment for both body and soul, and to reflect on eating as a way to connect the earthly with the divine. Through embodied practices, Torah, prayer, ritual and guided meditation, we will explore sacred eating as a pathway to self-awareness and self-care as well as an opportunity for communal growth and strengthened connections.
More details to come!
STILL DREAMING
This convening is made possible with support from Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, and we are still looking for additional sponsors to help make all desired aspects of this project come to fruition! Please be in touch with Julie if you would like to make a gift or refer other supporters to help manifest this vision!