Are you tired? Do you feel the strain of always trying to make things a certain way? Work, relationship, body, mind, other people, life, the world. Trying to make them go well, get better, be ok, successful, relaxed…

In mindfulness practice, we call this doing mode. Doing mode is no bad thing. There are many meaningful things to do. But if we spend every waking moment in this straining relationship with experience, we are exhausted.

Mindfulness invites us to an alternative, which is being mode. In being mode, we are allowed to stop trying. We can let things be as they are, for now. Not because we don’t care, but because in the release of being mode we can restore, re-energise, and then choose how to re-engage with the challenges, opportunities and delights of our lives.

Jewish practices of mindfulness and meditation are rich, long-standing, and often unfamiliar to many Jewish communities. They are a deep well, from which we can draw comfort, peacefulness, joy and healing, right in the middle of the challenges of modern life. In this workshop, Rabbi Dr James Jacobson-Maisels, one of the world’s foremost teachers of Jewish meditation, will offer an introduction to this landscape, including some practical strategies for integrating its wisdom. There will be teaching, meditation, and time for questions. It is open to everyone and assumes no prior experience.

This event is freely offered. At the end we will invite donations to Rav James.

About Rav James

Rabbi James Jacobson-Maisels Ph.D. is the founder and executive director of Or HaLev: Center for Jewish Spirituality and Meditation (www.orhalev.net). He has been studying and teaching meditation and Jewish spirituality for more than twenty five years. He received his Ph.D. in Jewish Studies from the University of Chicago and rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Daniel Landes, the Rosh Yeshivah of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies. He was the founding Rosh Yeshiva of Romemu Yeshiva and has taught and innovated programs in Jewish thought, mysticism, spiritual practices and meditation at Pardes, Haifa University, Yeshivat Hadar and in a variety of settings around the world. He strives to integrate his study and practice and to help teach and live Judaism as a spiritual discipline. Ordained while learning in a yeshiva through a traditional course of study, Rav James does not identify with any particular movement but is delighted by the diversity of Jewish expression.