International Symposium
on Jewish Meditation

Sunday 14 April 2024

Online via Zoom

Following the huge success of last year’s Symposium, we are delighted again to host another incredible online conference about Jewish contemplative spirituality. 

Teachers and academics from around the world, with a variety of different outlooks on Judaism, will come together online to discuss their shared interest in and love of Jewish meditation.

There will be news, views, texts, dialogue and more, with opportunities for practice and reflection.

Scroll down for more information and registration. You are warmly invited, regardless of your previous experiences of Judaism and meditation.

The event is free of charge to attend so that the Symposium can remain independent and open to the entire world community. Please donate generously to ensure that our presenters are shown due appreciation for providing their insights to the Symposium and are supported in their wider work.

Registration

International Symposium On Jewish Meditation 2024

Our Presenters

Miriam Margles

Rabbi Miriam Margles is a member of the Senior Core Faculty at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. She previously served as a congregational rabbi for 15 years – at the Danforth Jewish Circle in Toronto and the Woodstock Jewish Congregation (NY). She was a founding faculty member at the Romemu Yeshiva and co-founded Encounter, an educational organization working toward informed, courageous and resilient American & Israeli Jewish communal leadership on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Miriam was a fellow with the Rising Song Institute and recorded an album of her original Jewish music with the Hadar Rising Song Ensemble. 

Miriam teaches and leads by creating an atmosphere of attentive, brave, playful and open-hearted exploration of Jewish text, contemplative prayer and mindfulness practice, our inner landscapes, resilient connection with others, and relationship with the wider world, all working toward healing, wisdom and liberation. Her work integrates exploration through movement, voice and song and creative writing. She is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship and the Jerusalem Fellows at the Mandel Leadership Institute. She earned an MTS from Harvard Divinity School and a BFA from York University.

Institute for Jewish Spirituality: https://www.jewishspirituality.org/ 

Miriam’s album, Zeh HaYom – this is the day, is available at: https://miriammargles.bandcamp.com/album/this-is-the-day-zeh-hayom

mira

Mira Neshama Weil

Mira Neshama Weil is the founding Teacher of Neshima.co, the Jewish Meditation App and CEO at miraneshama.com. She received her Ph.D in Sociology of Religion at the EHESS in Paris, and her Orthodox Rabbinic Smikha from Prof. Rabbi Daniel Sperber at Beit Midrash Har’El in Jerusalem. 

A certified Jewish Experiential Educator (Pardes), Jewish Mindfulness Teacher (IJS), Mindfulness Instructor (MTI) and Yoga Teacher (Sira RYT 200), Mira is adjunct Faculty at Or HaLev, Applied Jewish Spirituality, and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.

The Author of numerous Academic Articlesbook chapters and Press Articles on the ‘Jewish Buddhists’ Phenomenon, Jewish Mindfulness and Contemporary Jewish Spirituality, she has been teaching Hasidic Torah and Meditation online and internationally for over a decade, helping people cultivate embodied wisdom from the Jewish tradition.

Mira lives in Tel Aviv with her husband Matan and their dog Nissim, and when she isn’t learning or teaching Torah, she can be found painting illustrations, baking challah, or simply, meditating.

doniel

Doniel Katz

For nearly two decades, Rav Doniel Katz’s open and compassionate teachings on consciousness, mysticism and global transformation, have been a catalyst for change in the lives of thousands around the world. Born and raised in Australia, Rav Doniel had an award-winning film and theater career until a year of intensive spiritual awakening in his mid-twenties led him in a radically new path. Exploring many wisdom paths and traditions in search of deeper clarity to explain his experiences, he was finally guided to Jerusalem in 2000, where he has since been immersed in the world of Torah and Kabbalistic teachings, learning from some of the city’s great rabbis and tzaddikim (spiritual masters). Rav Doniel is the Founder/Director of The Elevation Project, dedicated to bringing the Torah and Kabbalah’s ancient systems of meditation and personal development back to the forefront of the generation’s spiritual culture. Highlights of his international speaking engagements include: presenting at the symposium on “Contemplative Techniques of Abrahamic Traditions,” hosted by the Dalai Lama’s Mind & Life Institute; lecturing at the Sinai Indaba conference in South Africa, where over 5,000 attended his workshops; and his 2016 appearance at “the world’s premiere mindfulness-in-business conference,” Wisdom 2.0 in Tel Aviv. 

Chasya Uriel Steinbauer

Rabbi Chasya, Founder & Director of The Institute for Holiness: Kehilat Mussar Mindfulness (https://www.kehilatmussar.com), integrates the teachings, wisdom, and practices of Mussar from Judaism and the Dharma from Theravada Buddhism, and is deeply informed by brain-based secular Buddhism and Mindfulness. The Institute is the only center in the world that unabashedly teaches Mussar Mindfulness as a unified path. A practitioner, teacher, and certified mindfulness meditation teacher for 28 years, Rabbi Chasya leads Mussar V’adim (groups), daily mindfulness meditation, and hosts the weekly podcast and blog Awakening: Torah Mussar Mindfulness.

Natan Ophir

Natan was born in Philadelphia and graduated from Yeshiva University in 1974. He then went on aliyah and studied 7 years at Yeshivat Mercaz Harav Kook where he received Rabbinical Ordination from the Chief Rabbi of Israel. He received his MA and PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he served as Rabbi of the University for 16 years until 1998. Natan’s specialty is in integrating meditative techniques with both spiritual experience and academic research in particular in the light of neuropsychology.

Zvika Krieger

Zvika Krieger is the Spiritual Leader of Chochmat HaLev, a progressive spiritual community in Berkeley, CA for embodied prayer and mindfulness, heart-centered connections, and mystical wisdom. He is co-founder of Shevet: Jewish Mindfulness Collective and has served in board and leadership positions for Sukkat Shalom/Milk+Honey camp at Burning Man, Jewish Studio Project, DC Minyan, and other organizations dedicated to nourishing the mind, body, and soul.

​Zvika has previously served as Facebook/Meta’s first-ever Director of Responsible Innovation, co-founder of the World Economic Forum’s Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the US Department of State’s first-ever “Ambassador to Silicon Valley,” and Middle East Correspondent for Newsweek.  

Learn more about Zvika at www.zvikakrieger.com and follow him on Instagram at @zkrieger.

Jericho Vincent

Rav Jericho Vincent is the founder and spiritual leader of Temple of the Stranger and a teacher of Torah to tens of thousands on Instagram and as a guest of dozens of communities across the country. They hold a graduate degree in public policy from Harvard University and are ordained in the lineage of Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. Jericho serves as an advisor to the Institute for Jewish Spirituality’s Clergy Leadership Program and as a board member of The Shalom Center. Jericho has been named to the Jewish Week’s 36 Under 36 and Forward 50 for their work.

Julie Emden

Julie Emden, E-RYT-500, Halprin Practitioner, is the Founding Director of Embodied Jewish Learning (EJL) and the Embodied Jewish Wisdom Network, a global collective of leaders and seekers of movement practices infused with Jewish wisdom. A graduate of five fellowship and teaching certification programs related to her work as a Iyengar-based Yoga instructor, dancer, Jewish educator, and movement/expressive artist, Julie has over two decades of experience guiding others in somatic explorations of Jewish wisdom teachings as a resource for living in balance and wholeness.

Julie has served on faculty for various organizations and EJL hosts an Advanced Teacher Training; a Global Directory and Class Calendar for leaders of embodiment in the Jewish world; podcasts, classes, workshops, coaching, mentorship and more. More info at www.embodiedjewishlearning.org.

Myriam Klotz

Rabbi Myriam Klotz (she/they) is Senior Core Faculty at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.  Myriam has taught Jewish yoga and embodied practice with IJS and elsewhere for over 30 years, including co-creating and directing The Yoga and Jewish Spirituality Teacher Training at Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center.  Currently Myriam directs Kol Dodi Jewish Spiritual Director Training at IJS.

Myriam’s upcoming IJS 4 week course, From My Flesh I See God: Embodying the Amidah, runs February 11-March 8, 2024.

Jenna Zadaka

Jenna Zadaka has creatively infused Jewish mystic teachings from the cyclical Hebrew calendar into wellness practices for over 10 years. Jenna’s passion is teaching embodiment practices that help women anchor to Jewish time in a healing and connective way. As a celebrated teacher of Jewish Mysticism, Yoga, and Mindfulness, Jenna humbly draws forth great wisdom from her root-teachers and ancestors.

Jenna founded the Jewish Yoga Course , a yoga journey through the 12 months of the Hebrew Calendar and the Sefirot Embodiment Course via breathandsoul.net. Jenna authored and created mystic meditation cards, a deck with 90 meditations sourced in Jewish ancient wisdom. Jenna is currently the Jewish Education Director of At The Well, a project to uplift Rosh Chodesh and wellness practices for women.

You can explore her online flows, meditations, and wisdom at www.breathandsoul.net or connect to her via Instagram at @breathandsoul_Jenna

Alan Brill

Alan Brill is the Cooperman/Ross Endowed Chair in the Jewish-Christian Studies Graduate Program in the Department of Religion at Seton Hall University. He specializes in interfaith theology, mysticism, and comparative theology.  Brill is the author of several books including Judaism and Other Relgions; Judaism and World Religions;  and Rabbi on the Ganges: A Jewish-Hindu Encounter based on his time as a Fulbright Senior Scholar at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. He is currently working on a book on a Jewish view of religious diversity and was a keynote speaker at the recent R20 summit in Bali.

Brill has taught Kabbalistic meditation on and off for 30 years in many settings. He has presented on Jewish meditation in Indian centers including the Tantra Institute in New Delhi, in Varanasi, and in Haridwar. He has spoken to experts in these locations about similarities and differences between the practices. Eventually, these explorations will form a book on Jewish visualization meditations. 

The Programme

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Registration

International Symposium On Jewish Meditation 2024