We are very excited to announce that registration is now open for our inaugural 5 night summer retreat with Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg. We will gather in the month of Elul, the month immediately before Rosh Hashanah, to prepare our hearts for the days of awe and the year ahead.

It is profoundly meaningful for HaMakom to be able to offer this retreat, which is longer than our established winter and spring retreats, and to be able to welcome back to the UK our beloved teacher Rabbi Sheila. Moving from retreats of 2 and 3 nights to one of 5 nights is not simply a matter of adding a couple of days. Those who have been on retreat before will know that it often takes some time to get to the depths: to settle into the peace, stillness and ease that retreat can offer. When we give ourselves the gift of more time on retreat, we give our bodies, hearts and minds longer, not just to touch into transformative states, but to linger and immerse in them. We give space for tranquillity, joy and healing to permeate, to be more deeply absorbed and soaked up, and so to be more available to us when we re-enter the busyness of life.

This will be an intimate retreat with a maximum of approximately 25 places. It is a precious opportunity to learn with Rabbi Sheila, a pioneer of the Jewish meditation movement, who now rarely teaches retreats, especially outside the USA. Please see below for Rabbi Sheila’s bio. She will be supported in the teaching of this retreat by HaMakom faculty member Zac Newman. 

The retreat will include sitting meditation, walking meditation, chanting practice, teachings, group and individual meetings, yoga, Shabbat practice, and more. The hope and intention of this retreat is to enter the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) and the 10 days leading up to Yom Kippur with more clarity, wisdom and direction.

Our venue is the beautiful Shallowford House: a period building with 9 acres of grounds and wildlife, set in Staffordshire. For more information see www.shallowfordhouse.org – and the picture above! Rooms are single or double, and they are all ensuite. Single rooms will be available to all who request them at no additional charge. The retreat will be catered with high quality, sustainable, delicious vegetarian and plant-based food. The full address is: Shallowford House, Shallowford, Stone, Staffordshire, ST15 0NZ, UK.

Throughout the retreat we will maintain social silence (see the “Social Silence” tab above for an explanation of this). The retreat will also include periods of movement practice. 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 anything in between.

Join us for a unique retreat dedicated to the practice of Jewish mindfulness meditation, and an experience of the Jewish path to wellbeing, wisdom and awakening. We would be delighted to welcome you.

About Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg

Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg served as a congregational rabbi for seventeen years. She graduated the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1986. She has published widely on such topics as feminism, spiritual direction, parenting, social justice and mindfulness from a Jewish perspective including three books: Surprisingly Happy, God Loves the Stranger and Let Us All Breathe Together. Rabbi Sheila has taught mindfulness meditation and yoga to rabbis, Jewish professionals and lay people in the context of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. She created and taught the Jewish Mindfulness Teacher Training Program. She serves as a spiritual director to clergy and others including students and faculty at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and Hebrew Union College.

If you have a question, or you would like to discuss something, we welcome hearing from you. Please contact Zac: zac@hamakom.community.

The retreat will begin at 4.00pm on Tuesday 22 August.

It will end at 2.00pm on Sunday 27 August. 

We endeavour 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.

The standard rate of registration for this retreat is £750. This includes all meals and accommodation.

Single rooms will be available to all who request them at no additional charge.

The retreat will be catered with high quality, sustainable, delicious vegetarian and plant-based food. We are 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.

IMPORTANT:

1. Please note that for this retreat we are using a different venue than the one we use for our shorter retreats.  Their cancellation terms with us are such that as a charity we are making a significant financial commitment to the venue from an early stage (many months before the date of the retreat).  This means that once you have booked your place, we will not have the usual flexibility to offer you repayment of your booking fee if you need to cancel, and we will only be able to do so if we are able to fill your place.  Please do therefore ensure that you have appropriate holiday insurance in place to cover you for cancellation. In the event that you do need to cancel, please let us know as soon as possible so that we can discuss any possible options with you. If the retreat does not go ahead, you will receive a full refund. 
2. At the end of the retreat you will have the opportunity to give a donation to support the livelihood of the teacher. The registration fee you pay goes towards the retreat’s operating costs. It does not include payment to Rabbi Sheila.

The Benefits of Jewish Mindfulness Meditation

(from: The Institute for Jewish Spirituality)

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 very life.

Being in Peace & Quiet / Social Silence

You are invited to experience the retreat in peace & quiet, which we call social silence. This means that after dinner on the opening night, until lunchtime on the final day of the retreat, 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. Letting go of the familiar world of words, we enjoy more spaciousness from the complexities of personal interaction, and have the opportunity 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 periods each day for asking questions. Each person will also have the opportunity to meet with the teachers, where you can describe your practice, discuss anything that is arising for you, and receive personalised guidance.

We will explain how the silence will work, what to do if you need to speak to someone and answer any questions you have about it at the start of the retreat.