ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal

7000 Lincoln Drive #B-2, Philadelphia, PA 19119-3046

Tel. (215) 247-9700 - Fax (215) 247-9703 - www.aleph.org - alephajr@aol.com

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CONTACT: Debra Kolodny, Executive Director, ALEPH:

Alliance for Jewish Renewal

DATE: February 28, 2007

Phone: 301-565-0719

Email: DebraRuth@mac.com

Web site: www.aleph.org

Dear Editor:

Enclosed is the February 2007 ALEPH News Service. We hope you run one or both of the following articles, and look forward to hearing from you if you do. This release contains:

1. ALEPH Sage-ing Program Offers Next Training

2. Second Sacred Foods Conference to be held in Chicago

About ALEPH: ALEPH acts as the headquarters of the Jewish Renewal movement by organizing and nurturing communities, developing spiritual leadership, ordaining rabbis, cantors and rabbinic pastors, creating liturgical and scholarly resources, holding retreats and festivals and working for social and environmental justice.

ALEPH has attracted and energized thousands of seekers returning to Judaism and just as many who are deeply engaged but looking to elevate their current practice. ALEPH has 40 affiliated communities and its projects include two biennial gatherings: the Kallah and Ruach HaAretz. It also houses as the Sacred Foods Project, C-DEEP: The Center for Devotional, Energy, and Ecstatic Practice, the Rodef Shalom School for Peace, the Bet Midrash (producing siddurim, publications, videos and CDs from our founder Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and other Jewish Renewal teachers) and Kesher (supporting twenty and early thirty year old leaders). In addition to its projects, ALEPH also produces one-day Jewish Renewal festivals in communities around the US and Canada called Caravans. It is home to OHALAH: The Association of Rabbis for Jewish Renewal and a Rabbinic Studies Program, educating future rabbis, cantors and rabbinic pastors.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like additional information. ALEPH looks forward to working with you,

Debra Kolodny /s/

ALEPH Sage-ing Program Offers Next Training

Anybody can grow old, if they are lucky – but it takes work to become an elder.

A unique workshop entitled “The Hearts Wisdom and Legacy” will address this shifting cultural paradigm about growing older at a 5-day training workshop, May 28^th –June 5^th, at the Isabella Freedman Retreat Center in Falls Village, Ct. This workshop is appropriate for professionals and for those in the mid to later years of life, along with their families.

Traditional cultures teach that “acquiring a heart of wisdom,” as the psalm says, is a skill that is specific to eldering, or becoming older with anticipation and a sense of wholeness rather than with fear and denial. This workshop evolved from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi’s vision detailed in his groundbreaking book From Age-ing To Sage-ing published in 1992 by Warner Books. This vision empowers us to:

• Enrich the present moment

• Face our mortality and learn from it

• Mature in our relationships

• Develop a regenerative spirit

• Take active leadership roles in our communities

• Formulate a spiritual legacy for the generations following

• Consciously live our days with meaning, joy and connection to the source of that which is best in us.

This 5-day 24-hour workshop will focus on exploring the quality of relationships and the vitality of the social web. Presentations will be intertwined with journal writing exercises, text study, interactive and individual meditations, movement, and group sharing. While learning transformative “Sage-ing Tools” based in Jewish practices, we will also draw on the wisdom of other traditions, psychotherapy and current integral teachers. We view this as a deeply ecumenical process and invite all participants to connect their aging to their spiritual life.

Led by Rabbi Shaya Isenberg, Lynne Iser and Bahira Sugarman, the workshop will also feature Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, who will share his current thinking about the Sage-ing® work and answer questions each day via teleconference. The course is co-sponsored by The Elat Chayyim Center for Jewish Spirituality

To register contact: http://elatchayyim.org or call 1-800-398-2630 x 307. For program information contact BahiraS@aol.com or sri@religion.ufl.edu. Course credit for ALEPH rabbinic students may be available and the class may serve as a prerequisite course for the Sage-ing® Guild leadership certification.

Second Sacred Foods Conference to be held in Chicago

ALEPH’s 2007 Sacred Foods Conference: “From Insight to Action” will be held at the Cenacle Retreat Center in downtown Chicago from June 4-6. The conference program will draw from Christian, Islamic and Jewish teachings about food and hunger and provide a forum to discuss their relationship to modern contemporary social and environmental concerns.

Clergy and lay leaders working on issues of food, agriculture, health, environment and social justice in both nonprofit and faith-based organizations are welcome to attend. The conference will provide an opportunity to share good practices and model programs across faith traditions, to network, and identify opportunities for voluntary collaboration. Conference registration information can be found at www.sacred-foods.org after March 15.

In preparation for the event, the Sacred Foods Project will be releasing a set of new educational materials for congregations and communities of faith interested in learning more about an intentionally sacred relationship with food and agriculture. The materials will focus on the following dimensions:

Growing food in ways that protect and heal the web of life

Humane treatment of animals

Protecting the integrity and diversity of life

Preventing hunger

Fairness toward and empowerment of workers

Responsible and ethical forms of business

Food as an aspect of spirituality

Building in regular reflection on our actions and their impact

The congregational resources will include a model set of good practices around food purchasing for congregations and religious institutions as well as a guide to understanding ethics, food standards and certification programs. You will be able to find the information at www.sacred-foods.org after May 15.

The June conference is the capstone event for the interfaith component of the Sacred Foods Project. Launched in July, 2005 by ALEPH, in partnership with Faith in Place in Chicago, the Food Alliance, the Islamic Society of North America, the National Catholic Rural Life Conference and other faith-based institutions, businesses and nonprofit organizations, ALEPH will turn its focus to organizing on this issue within the Jewish community after the June event. For further information about the Sacred Foods Project, contact Debra Kolodny at DebraRuth@mac.com.