In Kislev—the month that softly ushers in increasing nights and winter’s quiet—we gather to lean into a paradox at the heart of Jewish spiritual life: that darkness is not merely an absence, but a presence of its own. 

Darkness holds depth, mystery, rest, and fertile ground. Light births revelation, insight, warmth, creativity. We need both. This retreat invites you into an embodied exploration of darkness and light as complementary forces that animate spiritual growth, creativity, resilience, and healing.  Our own personal darkness, too, can be a beacon– it has the potential to reveal luminous layers of power, precious truths and deep healing if we cultivate delicate and kind ways of light-shining. 

This retreat offers us the opportunity to create community in silence, with sitting meditation, walking meditation, sacred chanting, Shabbat practice, talks, Q&A and sharing experiences in the safety of small facilitated groups. Everyone is welcome, whatever experience you have or have not had – of meditation, or of Jewish traditions. This will be a unique weekend dedicated to the practice of Jewish Mindfulness Meditation, and an experience of the Jewish path to wellbeing, wisdom & awakening. 

Throughout the retreat we will maintain social silence. See the “Social Silence” tab above for an explanation of this. The retreat will also offer optional periods of movement practice led by Mika Hadar, for moving our bodies with subtle yoga. There will be space and time for davening (prayer), for those that wish to. We welcome people of all ages, of all faiths or none, beginners or experienced practitioners or anyone in between.

Amid the great pain, loss and division of these times, please know that you are welcome on this retreat, whoever you are, and whatever you are feeling.

Our venue is the beautiful and peaceful St. Cassian’s Centre, Wallingtons Road, Kintbury, Berkshire RG17 9SR.

HaMakom is so delighted to be offering this retreat in partnership with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality

About Rebecca Schisler

Rebecca Schisler is a Jewish educator, meditation teacher, and artist based in Oakland, California. A devoted contemplative practitioner, she is a full-time core faculty member at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, where she directs young adult programming and founded the Shevet Jewish Mindfulness Community. Rebecca also teaches mindfulness for Or HaLev and Stanford University’s School of Medicine. Previously, she served as an educator for Wilderness Torah, The Awakened Heart Project, Eden Village Camp, Urban Adamah, and HaMakom. Rebecca also co-authored the Mahloket Matters curriculum while serving as a Senior Social/Emotional learning consultant at the Pardes Center for Jewish Educators. A rabbinical student at ALEPH, Rebecca is passionate about integrating ancestral wisdom traditions with innovative approaches to personal and collective healing and liberation. Rebecca teaches Jewish spirituality as an embodied, transformational, and accessible path, with relevant and timely wisdom for all. Rebecca is a recipient of the 2025 Pomegranate Prize from the Covenant Foundation for emerging leaders in Jewish education. Rebecca taught the Hamakom Winter Retreat in 2023 and we are so delighted and excited to have her with us again this year.

About Miri Cohen

Miri has been practising meditation for over 25 years, mainly in the Insight tradition. She is an NHS-trained Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy/Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction teacher and a graduate of Yesod, the Jewish meditation programme from Or HaLev and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. Miri facilitates meditation groups in person and online for HaMakom and secular organisations and gives one to one sessions. She is a member of the Community Dharma Leader system at Gaia House, Devon, UK. Miri is a student of the late Rob Burbea and his teaching influences her approach. Miri is also a long-term practitioner of interfaith dialogue. Bev Cohen is now using her middle name, Miriam, so she is Miri

The retreat will begin at 1.45pm on Friday 5th December and will end at 4.00pm on Sunday 7th December 2025. 

Registration will be from 12.00pm to 1.15pm on Friday 5th December. Please arrive at St. Cassian’s Retreat Centre between 12.00pm and 1.15pm.

There is the option to eat an informal lunch together at the retreat centre at 12.30pm on Friday 5th December. This is an opportunity for conversation in community, before we enter into the social silence of the retreat. Anyone coming to the retreat is warmly invited to join. Please bring your own vegetarian food. The first meal provided by the retreat centre will be on Friday evening.

HaMakom endeavours to keep costs as low as possible, and to be accessible to everyone, regardless of financial circumstances. The price of our retreats is set to reflect just the basic costs of arranging the retreat at the beautiful St. Cassian’s Retreat Centre (https://www.thekintburyexperience.com/), outside the village of Kintbury in Berkshire. This includes all meals and accommodation, in double rooms and with shared bathrooms.

The meals provided by the retreat centre will all be vegetarian. We are also able to offer vegan, dairy free and gluten free options. If this does not suit your kashrut practice please contact us so that we can explore what arrangements will support you. We aim to accommodate everyone’s dietary and kashrut requirements, as best we can.

We  also offer the option for you to be an offsite participant and to arrange your own accommodation. If you prefer this option you will pay a reduced rate and will need to make your own accommodation arrangements. Please see details below of hotels that participants have previously stayed in.   Alternatively, some participants have had success finding accommodation through www.airbnb.com.

If you are interested in onsite camping please be in touch.

Retreat Rates (for onsite and offsite accommodation)

The rates for this retreat are at two levels: Standard and Scholarship.  We also offer you the opportunity to be a Supporter. 

Standard Rate: the Standard Rate is £275 and covers the basic running costs of the retreat. 

If you choose accommodation offsite, the Standard Rate is £230

We hope that if your financial means allow you will choose to join us at the Standard Rate.  

Scholarship Rate: the Scholarship Rate is £170, and is available to all who cannot afford the Standard rate.   If choosing this rate would enable you to join us then please do so, you are so welcome! 

Supporter Rate: it is a very special thing to have the opportunity to be on retreat in the environment of safety, support, stillness and beauty which retreat offers. Our deep wish is that these opportunities are available as widely as possible, and not limited by financial means. If you are able to, please consider making an additional donation. We will use this towards subsidising places for others to attend. In this way, you are a vessel for transformation and healing. We will gratefully receive any supplementary amount you are able to offer.

Single Room: We have a number of rooms available for single occupancy at a supplement of £60. If you book and pay for a single room you will be guaranteed one. If you are choosing the Scholarship Rate and need a single room please contact us to discuss this.

If you cannot afford the Scholarship rate please be in touch. No one will be turned away because of their financial circumstances.

At the end of the retreat, you will be invited to give donations to support our teachers livelihood, and to support HaMakom in its ongoing work. The registration fee you pay goes towards the basic costs of delivering the retreat and does not include any payment to our teachers.

Cancellations
Cancellations received by us in writing before Friday 21 November 2025 are fully refundable, less a £25 fee for administration and payment processing. We will not be able to refund cancellations notified to us less than 2 weeks before the event.

Details of offsite accommodation:
The two hotels below are approx. a 10 minute drive from the retreat centre.

Three Swans Hotel
117 High Street, Hungerford, Berkshire, RG17 0LZ
Tel: 01488 682721
http://www.threeswans.net/

The Bear
Charnham Street, Hungerford, Berkshire, RG17 0EL
Tel: 0845 6086040
https://www.greenekinginns.co.uk/hotels/bear-hotel-hungerford/ 

There is also a more expensive hotel in the village of Kintbury itself, a few minutes’ drive from the retreat centre:

The Dundas Arms
Tel: +44 (0) 1488 658 263
53 Station Road, Kintbury Hungerford RG17 9UT
https://www.dundasarms.co.uk/ 

IMPORTANT: Please make your own arrangements with the hotel if you choose to stay offsite, and let us know where you will be staying.

The Benefits of Jewish Mindfulness Meditation

(adapted from the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, with thanks)

We are dedicated  to introducing this practice into the Jewish world for several reasons:

• to enliven and enhance Jewish prayer, celebration, ritual and community;
• to be part of working for the betterment of our fragile and vulnerable planet; and
• to recognize the true and deep sources of happiness in a world filled with seductive, competing and ultimately unsatisfying short-term fixes.

How can Mindfulness Meditation Help?

Mindfulness meditation is training the mind. Just as we go to the gym to make our bodies stronger and more flexible, so mind training helps make our minds more spacious, perceptive and most of all free.

We train our capacity to pay attention by turning our attention, like a flashlight, on our own minds. This helps us see more clearly the nature of our own minds. We become aware of the patterns and habits that run our lives but have not been previously visible.

We begin to realize that these patterns and habits may serve our goals, desires, and purposes – but often they do not. We start to realize that there actually is a “pause button” built into our system. This pause button can be activated when we become triggered by an event outside ourselves and are tempted to act in reactive, patterned and unskilful ways.

The “pause button” wakes us up, creates a space in our mind where we can ask the question: ”What is the skilful, wholesome, wise, goal oriented action I need to take in this moment?” “What are my choices here?” The development of this capacity for inner freedom is why we train in mindfulness. This can be profoundly useful in our lives, especially in our relationships, and in any task we undertake to realize our dreams or express our creativity.

By cultivating attention, we are also able to feel more satisfied with each moment of our experience.

We learn to rest in this moment as it unfolds.

We learn to bring our awareness to the flow of energy in the body which is the very miracle of our aliveness. We learn to be more receptive to the fullness of each moment, rather than resisting what has already occurred or projecting what is not yet here. We learn to notice the arising and passing of all experience, recognizing how short and precious this life is.

We learn to treasure each day for the miracle it is. This is itself a source of happiness. According to modern neuroscience, the mind is a dynamic flow of experiences rather than a fixed state. When we experience this for ourselves, we feel less isolated, less caught in judgment and adversity, and more open to the mystery and majesty of this life.

Being in Peace & Quiet / Social Silence

You are invited to experience the retreat in peace & quiet/social silence. This means that from Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon, we invite you to observe silence at all times.

Spending time in silence can be a powerful way to support the deepening of meditative calm and insight. Being together in this way is an opportunity for us to explore a degree of solitude, while having the support of the group.

Being in silence can foster a sense of safety and refuge. Through letting go of the familiar world of words we can give ourselves the opportunity to find space from the complexity of personal interaction, and to see our mind and its activity more clearly.

Experiencing life directly, rather than through language and concepts, allows us to develop insight into the way things are. This direct seeing is the foundation for inner peace, wisdom and compassion.

There will be time for asking questions. Each person will also have the opportunity for small group time with one of the teachers over the weekend, where you can share what you choose to of your experience, and receive personalised feedback and guidance.

At the start of the retreat we will explain how the silence will work, what to do if you need to speak to someone, and answer any questions you may have. You are very welcome to contact us beforehand and ask anything too.