FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                      

CONTACT:   Debra Kolodny, Executive Director, ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal
DATE:           March 29, 2010
Phone:          301-565-0719
Email:           DebraRuth@mac.com
Web site:      www.aleph.org

Dear Editor:

Below is the March 2010 ALEPH News Service. We hope you run the following articles and look forward to hearing from you if you do. This release contains:

1. New Class in ALEPH’s on line Bet Midrash!

2. Ruach Ha'Aretz Summer Retreats 2010, Coming to a Coast Near YOU!

3. ALEPH Sage-ing Mentorship, Part Two: Death as Homecoming: Life is the Answer, Rabbis Nadya and Victor Gross, May 9-14 in Allenspark, CO

4. KOL ZIMRA 4: Chant Leader's Professional Development: Registration is open!

5. Am Kolel Sanctuary & Renewal Center Welcomes Rabbi Marcia Prager & Hazzan Jack Kessler for The New Moon-th of Tammuz: June 11-13, 2010

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 44 affiliated communities around the world. Its projects include two biennial gatherings: the Kallah and Ruach Ha’Aretz, 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), Kesher (supporting twenty and early thirty year

old leaders) and the Institute for Contemporary Midrash. In addition to its projects, ALEPH produces one-day Jewish Renewal festivals and engages in tikkun olam work to

heal the planet, build peace and champion human rights. OHALAH: The Association of Rabbis for Jewish Renewal and the ALEPH Rabbinic Studies Program, educating future

rabbis, cantors and rabbinic pastors are both branches of ALEPH.

Debra Kolodny /s/

Executive Director

ALEPH's On-Line Bet Midrash

NEW! Mechinah Distance Learning Course Begins Mid-April

Wondering and Oneness:

An Introduction to Reading the Rabbis with Rabbi Natan Margalit

The beauty of Rabbinic Judaism has been that we can bring all our wondering, our questions, curiosity and conundrums to the texts, not in order to tear them apart, but to use them to help us realize the oneness that pervades all creation.

In this course we will read the 9th (and final) chapter of Mishnah Brakhot with the commentary of Rav Ovadia of Bartenura. This is a theologically rich chapter that deals with the blessings we say on both extraordinary and everyday events, and one that rewards close analysis. Although the Hebrew of the Mishnah is not extremely difficult, reading the Mishnah with sensitivity to its subtle meanings is an art that even the most learned can always improve upon. Reading the commentary of Bartenura (15th century Italy) is a good way to get an introduction to the rabbinic idiom which incorporates many Aramaic terms from the Talmud, abbreviations and other stumbling blocks to the modern reader. Bartenura also serves as a good example of the tradition of interpretation that stems from the Babylonian Talmud.

We will compare those interpretations of the Mishnah with our own readings. This class will be aimed at giving the student a greater facility with reading rabbinic texts, both on the level of technical reading and translation and on the level of interpreting for meaning.

For more information or to register, go to https://www.aleph.org/distance_learning.htm

Ruach Ha'Aretz Summer Retreats 2010: Coming to a Coast Near YOU!

For the first time Ruach Ha’Aretz will be hosting bicoastal retreats in 2010, making our environmental footprint smaller and our holy study and celebration easier to access for you! Join us as we explore our theme: "Greening the Godfield"

From July 5–11, 2010 join us at the Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center in Reisterstown, Maryland.

From August 2–8, 2010 join us at the Bosch Baha’i Retreat and Conference Center in Santa Cruz, California.

Both retreats will feature amazing teachers and the fabulous Ruach Kids program. Go to http://www.ruachhaaretz.com/signature_retreat.html for full conference details and registration.

JULY IN MARYLAND:

MORNING:

Greening our Festival and Life-cycle Celebrations –Rabbi Arthur Waskow

What do Pesach and Sukkot, Tisha B’Av and Hanukkah, and becoming bar/ bat mitzvah have to do with healing the relationship between adam (earthy humanity) and adamah (earth)? What is the place of the Jewish people in this healing effort? How can we draw on our ancient ceremonials of an indigenous people in close touch with the earth to make a difference today?

Earth, Text and Soul: A Contemplative Approach to Torah–Rabbi Leila Gal Berner

We Jews are an intellectual people. For many, however, spirituality and meaning are found through a more contemplative approach. Explore a Jewish adaptation of a centuries-old contemplative Christian form of engagement with the Bible called “kriat ha-kodesh" — “Reading the Holy.”

The Art of Praise–Rabbi Shefa Gold

Perek Shirah is an ancient Jewish text that is a celebration of Praise for The Creator. All of Creation has a voice in this celebration. The Heavens, the Earth and all the creatures large and small are quoted. What can we learn from the Creatures that abound in our world?

Bahti l’Gani: I Came to the Garden...To Enter Into the Great Web of Life (the Kabbalah of Avatar?)–Rabbis Nadya and Victor Gross

All is God…of God…in God…Green is the color of healing…and Wholeness. These truths are hardwired into us and all of Creation, and yet we separate, creating distinctions that give rise to competition and abuse. We will enter the Garden, so beautifully rendered in Avatar in 3D, through the invitation in Torah and Kabbalah – and then ask ourselves compelling questions.

AFTERNOON

Sippur Nafshi: The Story of My Soul –Judith Dack

The artist within us waits for inspiration, a call to partner with The Creator. In sacred community we’ll journey inward to the God-Field transported by a blend of practices including Hebrew chant, meditation and creative writing exercises. No previous artistic experience is necessary.

Hands on Kabbalah: The Four Worlds of Healing Touch and Relationship Rabbi Shaya Isenberg and Bahira Sugarman

The deepest ecological understanding is that healing the planet is really healing the God-field. As we learn to touch each other gently, with love and compassion in all four worlds, we learn to relate to the God-field of the planet lovingly and compassionately.

Decay and Renewal: Jewish Environmental Ethics in a Time of Change Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener

Explore the roots of Jewish ecology – an organic system of people in their place on the land and in the cosmos. Discover how our celebrations, theology and rituals evolved in the context of the natural order.

With All Your Breath-With all you have in you–Hazzan Jack Kessler

This ‘master-class’ style course blends fun group vocal exercises and singing with individualized vocal coaching for both advanced singers and beginners. Knowledge of basic liturgical Hebrew required.

ALEPH Lifecycle Ceremonies Training (Full day)– Rabbi Marcia Prager and RP Shulamit Fagan with guest teachers

Weave innovation and tradition into powerful, authentic Jewish ceremonies as you use teaching, creative translation, and vocal presentation to create and sustain an emotionally compelling and transformative event. A practicum for ALEPH Rabbinic, Cantorial and Rabbinic Pastor students, this class is open to other ordained clergy and students as space permits. Contact Rabbi Marcia for an application at Rebmarcia@aol.com

AUGUST IN CALIFORNIA

MORNING

Greening the Inner God-field: The Care and Feeding of Your GodSelf

–Rabbi Wayne Dosick

Our world is a world of wonder and awesome beauty — the Holy Presence of the transcendent God, the God of creation, communal covenant, revelation, and redemption, is around us without end. When you open the channel between your GodSelf and God, between the “outer” and the “inner”, then God inundates you with your God-ness, the deepest, highest, and finest of your God-being. There is Oneness.

Earth, Text and Soul: A Contemplative Approach to Torah–Rabbi Leila Gal Berner (See description above)

The Art of Praise–Rabbi Shefa Gold (See description above)

The Kabbalah of Food, Love, Abundance, Healing and Dreams–Rabbi Leah Novick

While the Zohar was transmitted in the 13th century it can be surprisingly futuristic in its approach to human relationships and life on this planet. Explore ways in which the wisdom of our mystics continues to expand and deepen our search for higher consciousness while we are embodied. Music, movement and meditation will be part of our daily journey.

Embodying Sh’ma– Rabbi Diane Elliot

Let us listen with all of our selves so we can perceive and also co-create the field of Unity that undergirds, permeates, and enlivens the natural world. Delve experientially into the Sh’ma prayer, the ancient heart of Jewish liturgy, in each of the kabbalistic Four Worlds—through body and movement; feeling and chant; language, text, and meaning; and breath and breadth of spirit.

AFTERNOON

From Elohim to Teva: The Jewish Creator's Evolution to Being One-with-Creation–Rabbi David J. Cooper

Biblical and Rabbinic views pose God as both outside and operating upon a completed universe. A subtle evolution has been in the works for 3000 years, moving from a monotheistic transcendent God to a "monist" God that is the divine nature of the universe Itself/Herself/Himself. What are the implications for our covenantal responsibilities for this planet of which we are one organ?

Stories From Before Time: Paradise Lost and Paradise Found–Ellen Kaufman Dosick

Ancient mythologies source our Beings, and foundation our interactions with God and our Earth. The Myths of Beginnings and Middles tell of the complicated relationships between Shechinah, Source, Humankind, and Earth. These midrashim carry a woundedness expressed in our unbalanced and wounded relationship with Gaia and with the Divine. Immerse yourself in these epic tales. Learn deep and powerful processes to change these stories and enable a New World of Oneness, of Paradise Found. As the sage teaches, “When we change the story, we change the world.”

The Four Core Truths of the Ba’al Shem Tov:Kabbalah In a Terrestrial Key–Rabbi Burt Jacobson

Traditional Kabbalah was primarily concerned with the celestial realms beyond the earth. Israel Ba’al Shem Tov, founder of Hasidim, put the emphasis on the divinity of the physical world. In this class we will study the Ba’al Shem’s Four Core Truths, which speak to personal and collective liberation, integrating expanded states of consciousness into ordinary activities, and sanctifying existence on this plane.

At Play in the Field of Soul, Sound, and Song: A four-day adventure with the Voice–Judith-Kate Friedman

How does the Living World sing to us? How does Creation call us to sing? What happens as we waken our voices in Devotion? How can the voice lead us to live in reciprocity with All that Is? We’ll listen, tone, and attune to breath, welcome each other’s sacred gifts and sing freely as birds. Sharing our work, dancing and singing together on the holy ground of permission, our souls will be confirmed and will confirm us: out loud and in silence, in community and solitude, resonating, as all sound and vibration does, out and in, to the Infinite.

The Green Jew–Rabbi Ori Har and Oz DiGennaro

Like the love of God in spirit, and the sacredness of Shabbat in time, so can wilderness restore our wholeness in space. “And you will then know that I am the Infinite One who dwells deep within the earth” (Exodus 8:18). To Green the Godfield we will be fully present to the natural world through silent hiking, breath meditations, hitbodedut practice, text study, blessings, and joy making. We will follow the Four Worlds, Four Elements and Four Winds...

ALEPH Sage-ing Mentorship, Part Two: Death as Homecoming: Life is the Answer, Rabbis Nadya and Victor Gross, May 9-14 in Allenspark, CO

People have been dying ever since the world began

and yet each one of us clings to the illusion

that death is something that happens

to other people but not to us.

~Rabbi Jack Reimer

When we recognize that life is finite we are challenged to live each moment fully and to accept the gift of our soul’s breath as our most precious commodity. Part TWO of the Sage-ing program focuses on facing our mortality and learning from it how to reprioritize and redefine the values in OUR lives.

We may choose to BE rather than DO. We can freely choose to NOW focus on the meaning of our lives and make the adjustments that allow for that meaning to be expressed before we are faced with the “final curtain call.”

Using processes and tools that take us into the imaginal realm, we will visit the end of our life to explore medical and ethical choices and the psycho-spiritual obstacles to a ‘beautiful death’. We will encounter the Soul, and what our Jewish mystical tradition teaches us about the journey our soul takes—before, during and after this lifetime.

Each of us will write our own vidui/“deathbed confession,” and begin the process of writing a Spiritual-Ethical Will. We will take home with us the tools to update and expand both of these gifts as life continues to unfold.

For more information, please visit www.ruachhaaretz.com/sageing_home.html

For questions e-mail Sage-ing@ruachhaaretz.com or leave a voice message at Ruach Ha-Aretz: 415.339.8677.

KOL ZIMRA: Chant Leader's Professional Development

A Two-Year Training Program led by Rabbi Shefa Gold and Rachmiel O'Regan

Kol Zimra 4 is open for registration!

This program is designed for Rabbis, Cantors and Lay Leaders, Meditation Teachers, Rosh Chodesh Leaders, Healers, Prayer Leaders, Support Group Facilitators and Artists of Ritual.

It will meet in Albuquerque, New Mexico and begin July 26–Aug 1, 2010.

Chanting, the melodic and rhythmic repetition of a sacred phrase, is a way of transforming the words of liturgy and Torah into doorways to expanded states of consciousness. The chant can attune us to ever-deepening levels of meaning, unlock the treasures of the heart, and give us an opportunity to generously serve each other. This Chant Training will be an opportunity to explore this powerful ecstatic practice with both rigorous attention to detail and expansive enjoyment of its transformative effects. Participants will be asked to organize a chanting group in their own communities in order to develop and refine the skills of chant and group energy. We will learn about the dynamics and potential of a spiritual group, using our own group as a living laboratory.

For more details, go to www.ruachhaaretz.com and click on the picture of R. Shefa and Rachmiel.

Contact R. Shefa at Shefa@RabbiShefaGold.com with your questions about the program or to express your interest in joining the next group. Space is limited.

Am Kolel Sanctuary & Renewal Center Welcomes Rabbi Marcia Prager & Hazzan Jack Kessler for The New Moon-th of Tammuz: Seeds of Destruction & Renewal June 11-13, 2010

Please join us June 11-13 at beautiful Am Kolel Sanctuary & Renewal Center near Washington DC, for an intimate weekend of sacred study and joyous practices with Reb Marcia Prager, Hazzan Jack Kessler, Reb David Shneyer & friends, as we are doubly blessed by Shabbat and Rosh Hodesh Tammuz. On Shabbat, we’ll read the difficult tale of Korach's rebellion against Moshe, a reminder of the destructive consequences of ego and self-aggrandizement... But Tammuz contains more than just harbingers of destruction. It is also a time that points towards rebirth and renewal. How do renewal and destruction meet each other? How can renewal spring from our most destructive impulses and experiences? Come explore! With a blend of midrashic, hasidic and mystical wisdom, we will discover new ways to turn our greatest challenges into our biggest gifts.

The weekend begins with Kabbalat Shabbat and dinner on Friday, June 11 at 7 pm, and continues till noon on Sunday, June 13.  

Resident and Commuter Rates Available.  

Contact Gilah to register or for more information: 301.349.2799 or gilah@am-kolel.org.