שַֹעֲרֵי דַּעַת
Our Gates of Awareness program has begun, and registration has closed. We plan to offer this program in a three year cycle, with the next cohort beginning in 2026. You're welcome to read more about the program here
Gates of Awareness:
Jewish Mindfulness Meditation
Deepening Practice & Teacher Training
In partnership with The Institute for Jewish Spirituality
Gates of Awareness: Jewish Mindfulness Deepening Practice & Teacher Training is a one to three-year program that will profoundly deepen your practice and understanding of Jewish mindfulness and provide two levels of training in teaching Jewish mindfulness, meditation and spirituality:
Each year of the program will focus on developing a particular set of skills and understandings
Year I/Yesod: Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Deepening Practice will focus on a systematic, in-depth understanding and practice of Jewish mindfulness grounded in our belief that your ability to teach skillfully is determined by your depth of practice and understanding.
Year 2/Tiferet: Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training will deepen your practice and understanding while training you in the practical pedagogical skills a leader and teacher of a meditation group needs, including giving meditation talks, developing meditation lessons, guiding meditations, facilitating groups and more.
Year 3/Keter: Advanced Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Retreat Teacher Training will further deepen your practice and understanding while training you in the particular skills a retreat teacher needs, including meditation meetings with students, building and holding a retreat, advanced meditation practice instructions and more.
Participants may take one, two or all three years of the program. Each year has its own entrance requirements which include but are not limited to completion of the previous year(s). Admission to each successive year will be determined through an application process.
Table of contents:
Gates of Practice and Understanding
Yesod - Foundations - Year 1 - January - October, 2023
Year 2: Tiferet - Sitting Group Teaching - January - October, 2024
Year 3: Keter - Retreat Teaching - 2025
Gates of Practice and Understanding
The program as a whole and the structure of each year of the program is built around four fundamental “Gates” of understanding and practice:
The Gate of Love Sha’ar HaHesed
The Gate of Joy Sha’ar HaSimcha
The Gate of Holiness Sha’ar HaKedusha
The Gate of Divinity Sha’ar HaElohut
Each gate prepares the ground for the succeeding gate and builds on the previous one. By moving through these gates of love, joy, holiness and divinity and circling back through them, participants will be taken on a progressive course of deepening in their understanding and practice.
The Gate of Love/Sha’ar HaHesed welcomes us into both our own and the world’s sacred primordial loving nature. Through developing the ability to respond with softness, gentleness and acceptance to our experience, we learn to reduce our reactivity and meet challenging states of mind, heart and body with love and compassion. We begin to recognize ourselves as both innately beloved and loving, and start to trust the divine ground of love, allowing it to express itself through us in acts of love and care. We open to our passion in a less constricted way, committing to transforming ourselves and the world.
The Gate of Joy/Sha’ar HaSimcha invites us to recognize the inherent goodness and delight of creation and ourselves. Building on the trust developed in the Gate of Love/Sha’ar HaHesed, we learn how to rest our mind on the beauty and joy that is all around and within us. We shift from a habitual “what’s wrong mind” oriented to threat and protection, to a “what’s right mind” that enables playfulness and flexibility. We experience grounded faith, as trust in our basic nature starts to deepen. As we work to deepen our concentration and equanimity, wholesome mind-heart states such as equanimity, joy, gratitude and awe blossom and our natural beneficence shines forth in thought, word and deed. Through directly perceiving the workings of the mind and its unhelpful habitual patterns, we learn to unwind and release those patterns, creating spaciousness and freedom. We come to recognize that happiness is an inside job, available to us from within if we can release our preoccupation with reaching for something external to fill a void.
Having enhanced our sense of safety, ease, openness, trust, and peace in the world through relying on primordial goodness and love, and having developed our insight and skillfulness in working with challenging states of heart, mind and body through the first two gates, a more settled, flexible, secure, and available heart-mind (lev) can now start to develop the insights of the next two gates.
The Gate of Holiness/Sha’ar HaKedusha orients us to divine fullness and teaches us to glimpse our sacred non-separate nature and our natural luminosity. Practices of non-identification (such as with stories of unworthiness or our identity as doers), expansiveness, awareness of awareness, and others will enable us to both release limiting self-notions and directly notice our true sacred nature. Grounded in this basic insight of boundless connection, our ease, delight and equanimity will deepen. Showing up in the world more naturally and spontaneously we are greater able to respond wisely to the suffering within and without and allow our wholesome passion to flow more freely.
The Gate of Divinity/Sha’ar HaElohut orients us to divine emptiness and opens up to us the profound vistas of the radically open and empty (ayin) nature of divinity and our soul. Through understanding more deeply how illusory views of self and world are created, and through practices of releasing our habitual sense of self (bitul ha-ani), seeing the spaciousness inherent in all phenomena (histaklut lo gashmit), and letting go of all structure or boundary (bitul hayesh), we will gradually touch our inherently open nature. Grounded in this insight of boundlessness, wonder, joy, and delight spring forth enabling a lighter and freer way of being in the world. Our reactivity continues to lessen. We can show up for ourselves and others in an even more expansive, flexible, and unconstricted way.
Each gate is a continual work in progress and each gate supports and enhances the others. By moving through them and circling back in ever-deepening ways, we develop the maturity of our practice and create a framework and systematic understanding that will serve us the rest of our lives and lay the groundwork for effective teaching.
Yesod - Foundations - Year 1 - January - October, 2023
Yesod is a deep dive into a systematic approach to practicing Jewish mindfulness meditation and mindful Jewish living. In this program you will deepen your understanding and practice of Jewish mindfulness in particular ways, and you will emerge with a systematic and comprehensive grasp of Jewish mindfulness. This will allow you to integrate disparate aspects of practice and provide a framework that enables truly effective growth and development as a practitioner and teacher.
Our integrated approach will develop practice and theory in a mutually reinforcing and experiential way. You will be trained in concrete practices of liberation and taught both their formal practice and how to integrate them into your daily life while deepening your understanding of the Jewish sources and philosophy behind these practices.
Structure: What You’ll Receive and What You’ll Do
20 Bi-weekly (every other week) live online classes integrating texts, theory and practice, convening alternatingly each month between Sundays and Mondays
20 Guided video/audio meditations and teachings
An extensive curriculum of Jewish mindfulness texts
Guidance for biweekly partnered learning and practice
We’ll match you with another participant / small group to continue the learning outside of class
A Sun-Fri Virtual Jewish Meditation Retreat
4 day-long retreats deepening key aspects of practice and understanding
6 small group meetings with a teacher (3 off retreat / 3 on retreat) to receive personalized instruction in the development of your practice
Whatsapp Group for continued sharing and exploration outside of class
Jewish Mindfulness Training Certificate of Completion
Course Requirements
Regular attendance at classes
Viewing the video recording of any class you are not able to attend as soon as possible so you know the practice, instructions and themes for the next two weeks
Daily practice of at least 20 minutes a day
Text preparation for each class
Biweekly (every other week) hevrutah (partnered learning) to study assigned texts and do assigned practices
Reading assigned articles for class
Attendance at virtual retreats
A short biweekly posting to the Whatsapp group about your experience
Goals and Learning Outcomes
A Systematic framework for the understanding and practice of mindfulness meditation and mindful Jewish living based on selections from the following sources
R. Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira, The Piaseczner Rebbe (20th Cent. Poland)
Modern Mindfulness and Buddhist Teachers (20-21st Cent.)
Hasidism (18th Cent. orig. E. Europe Ashkenazi until today)
Kabbalah (12th Cent. until today, primarily Mizrahi and Sephardi) and other Jewish mysticism
Rabbinic texts (2nd cent until today, orig. middle eastern)
Bible
Key topics in Jewish mindfulness
Access and exposure to core Jewish mindfulness texts and terminology
Learning key terms and acquiring basic fluency in texts in translation
Exposure to key texts
A historical and theological framework for Jewish spiritual texts
Jewish mindfulness practices
Learning and deepening core Jewish mindfulness practices
Learning and exposure to other Jewish mindfulness and spiritual practices (e.g. prayer)
Understanding of Jewish mindfulness in relation to other Jewish practices
Transformational applications
Healing modes of relating to body, mind, heart and soul
Learning how practice integrates into your life
Applying meditation to address physical pain, emotional challenges, relational difficulties, and interpersonal conflict. Basic working understanding of trauma-informed practice for self
Widening the heart and cultivating qualities such as love, compassion, forgiveness, gratitude. awe and joy
Community
Being part of a community of dedicated practitioners
Taught by leading teachers in the field
Entry Requirements
At least 1 year of practice and commitment to a daily practice
Participation in a minimum of one week-long silent mindfulness/ Jewish mindfulness/insight meditation retreat
A desire and commitment to deepen and grow in your Jewish mindfulness practice
Year 2:
Tiferet - Sitting Group Teaching - January - October, 2024
Tiferet intensifies the personal learning and growth of the first year (Yesod) while training you in the skills you need to be an effective teacher of Jewish mindfulness in classes, sitting groups and other similar contexts. Individual growth in practice/understanding and acquiring pedagogical skills will be taught in an integrated way so that each informs and deepens the other.
Tiferet will enable you to take your passion for practice and bring it to others, helping you to become an effective teacher of this spiritual tradition. Through a variety of learning approaches, including workshops and practicums, you will have opportunities to develop and refine your meditation teaching skills.
Structure: What You’ll Receive and What You’ll Do
20 Bi-weekly (every other week) live meetings. This will include:
Teaching and discussion that integrates texts, theory, pedagogy and practice
Pedagogical instruction and faculty reflections on their own teaching
Student Practicums/Teaching Labs
20 Guided video/audio meditations and teachings
Additional curriculum of Jewish mindfulness texts and practices
Guidance for biweekly partnered and individual learning and practice
We’ll match you with another participant and with a small group to continue the learning outside of class
Guidance for peer reflection groups
2 Jewish Meditation Retreats
The first retreat will be faculty-led with faculty giving you a look behind the scenes to help you develop your teaching skills.
The second retreat will provide many opportunities for student facilitation with faculty feedback
4 day-longs
Final Practicum / Closing Project
A combination of small group and individual meetings with teachers to receive personalized instruction in the development of your practice
Whatsapp Group for continued sharing and exploration outside of class
Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certificate
Course Requirements
Regular attendance at classes
Viewing the video recording of any class you are not able to attend before the next class.
Missing no more than 4 classes
Daily practice of at least 30 minutes
Text preparation for each class
Biweekly (every other week) hevrutah (partnered learning) to study assigned texts and do assigned practices
Reading assigned articles for class
Preparation for practicums (whenever it is your turn)
Preparing meditation instruction, teaching, etc.
Refining your teaching through peer-led reflection groups prior to meetings with the teachers
Peer reflection groups
Attendance and teaching on the retreats
Entry Requirements
At least 3 years of daily practice and commitment to ongoing daily practice
A minimum of 3 week-long silent mindfulness/jewish mindfulness/insight meditation retreats (The Yesod retreat counts towards this requirement)
A desire and commitment to deepen and grow in your Jewish mindfulness practice
Completion of Yesod
Goals and Learning Outcomes
Participant will emerge having learned and been exposed to:
Deeper understanding and practice of mindfulness meditation and mindful Jewish living.
Expanding on the Yesod curriculum to introduce new perspectives, texts and practices
Deepening previous topics and practices
Refining practices and understandings
Developing an understanding of the unfolding of practice over time
Pedagogical Skill Training in
Giving talks
Giving meditation instructions
Answering questions
Facilitating small groups
Helping people apply practice to life
Preparing texts, text sheets and materials and how to use Jewish texts in your teaching
Evaluating your teaching
Working with people where they are
Refining instructions, answers etc.
Meeting suffering, confusion, and resistance
Working with students to identify their growing edge
Acquiring a Jewish teaching language and terminology
Community organizing
How to organize and sustain a sitting group in your community
How to leverage relationships with stakeholders to promote and sustain the work
How to work with resistance
Showcasing a variety of different models for sitting groups in different settings (e.g. synagogues, spirituality centers, schools, businesses, etc.)
Responsible, Ethical and Safe Leadership and Pedagogy
Making for safety
Trauma informed approach
DEI informed approach
Teacher student relations
Community
Being part of a community of dedicated, serious practitioners
Creating a community of colleagues in your ongoing teaching and practice
Exposure to excellent teachers
Creating a resource bank
Year 3:
Keter - Retreat Teaching - 2025
Keter will profoundly enrich your practice while preparing you to be able to teach on Jewish mindfulness meditation retreats. This smaller, more intimate intensive program will train you to support practitioners on retreat in their growth and development. Both deepening our practice, the source of all of our teaching, and training in retreat based pedagogical skills, such as individual and group meetings with practitioners, will be foundational to this year.
This year is open to dedicated and experienced practitioners and the completion of Yesod and Tiferet will not be sufficient to be accepted to this program (see entry requirements below).
Structure: What You’ll Receive and What You’ll Do
20 Bi-weekly (every other week) live meetings. This will include
Teaching and discussion that integrates texts, theory, pedagogy and practice
Pedagogical instruction and faculty reflections on their own teaching
Student Practicums/Teaching Labs
Guided video/audio meditations and teachings.
A combination of small group and individual meetings with teachers to receive personalized instruction in the development of your practice.
Additional Curriculum of Jewish mindfulness texts and practices
Guidance for regular partnered and individual learning and practice
We’ll match you with another participant and with a small group to continue the learning outside of class
Give people the option to choose the people in their group. Rank preference.
Guidance for peer reflection groups
Retreats
1 Faculty led retreat at the beginning of the program
1 Student facilitated Retreats with faculty feedback
Participants apprenticing on a Jewish mindfulness retreat with OHL, IJS.
Final Practicum / Final Project
Retreat apprenticeship opportunity
Jewish Mindfulness Retreat Teacher Certificate
Course Requirements
Regular attendance at classes
viewing the video recording of any class you are not able to attend before the next class.
Missing no more than 4 classes
Daily practice of at least 45 minutes (an hour highly recommended)
Text preparation for each class
Bi-weekly (every other week) hevrutah (partnered learning) to study assigned texts and do assigned practices
Reading assigned articles for class
Preparation for practicums (whenever it is your turn)
Preparing meditation instruction, teaching, etc.
Refining your teaching through peer led reflection groups prior to meetings with the teachers
Self Reflection and Peer reflection groups
Student reflection and journaling on master teachers (in program and prior to program)
Attendance and teaching at the retreats
Apprenticing on an Or HaLev, IJS or allied Retreat.
Goals and Learning Outcomes
Learning Outcomes: Participant will emerge having learned and been exposed to:
Deeper understanding and practice of mindfulness and Jewish mindfulness.
Expanding on the Tiferet curriculum to introduce new perspectives, texts and practices
Particular emphasis on more advanced practices and training our view
Deepening previous topics and practices
Refining practices and understandings
Deepening an understanding of the unfolding of practice over time including graduated and direct paths.,
Pedagogical Skill Training in
Reviewing and deepening Tiferet pedagogical skills
Developing ability to hold people collectively and individually in terms of their growth over time.
Further and advanced meditation practice instructions
Leading retreat groups and individual meetings.
Building and Leading a Retreat
Evaluating a retreat
Practicing, Facilitating, Teaching and/or Enabling non-meditation retreat practices (hitbodedut, chanting, prayer, text study)
Responsible, Ethical and Safe Leadership and Pedagogy for Retreats
Trauma informed approach
DEI informed approach
Teacher student relations
Community
Being part of a community of dedicated serious advanced practitioners
Creating a community of colleagues for your ongoing teaching and practice.
Creating the next generation of Jewish mindfulness retreat teachers
Exposure to Excellent Teachers
Building a resource bank
Entry Requirements
At least 5 years of dedicated practice and commitment to a regular practice
A minimum of 8 week-long silent mindfulness/jewish mindfulness/insight meditation retreats (The student led Tiferet virtual retreat will not count for this purpose though the Yesod retreat will as will the faculty led Tiferet retreat)
A desire and commitment to deepen and grow in your Jewish mindfulness practice
Completion of Tiferet
Gates of Awareness:
Jewish Mindfulness Meditation
Deepening Practice & Teacher Training
In partnership with The Institute for Jewish Spirituality
Gates of Awareness: Jewish Mindfulness Deepening Practice & Teacher Training is a one to three-year program that will profoundly deepen your practice and understanding of Jewish mindfulness and provide two levels of training in teaching Jewish mindfulness, meditation and spirituality:
Each year of the program will focus on developing a particular set of skills and understandings
Year I/Yesod: Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Deepening Practice will focus on a systematic, in-depth understanding and practice of Jewish mindfulness grounded in our belief that your ability to teach skillfully is determined by your depth of practice and understanding.
Year 2/Tiferet: Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training will deepen your practice and understanding while training you in the practical pedagogical skills a leader and teacher of a meditation group needs, including giving meditation talks, developing meditation lessons, guiding meditations, facilitating groups and more.
Year 3/Keter: Advanced Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Retreat Teacher Training will further deepen your practice and understanding while training you in the particular skills a retreat teacher needs, including meditation meetings with students, building and holding a retreat, advanced meditation practice instructions and more.
Participants may take one, two or all three years of the program. Each year has its own entrance requirements which include but are not limited to completion of the previous year(s). Admission to each successive year will be determined through an application process.
Table of contents:
Gates of Practice and Understanding
Yesod - Foundations - Year 1 - January - October, 2023
Year 2: Tiferet - Sitting Group Teaching - January - October, 2024
Year 3: Keter - Retreat Teaching - 2025
Gates of Practice and Understanding
The program as a whole and the structure of each year of the program is built around four fundamental “Gates” of understanding and practice:
The Gate of Love Sha’ar HaHesed
The Gate of Joy Sha’ar HaSimcha
The Gate of Holiness Sha’ar HaKedusha
The Gate of Divinity Sha’ar HaElohut
Each gate prepares the ground for the succeeding gate and builds on the previous one. By moving through these gates of love, joy, holiness and divinity and circling back through them, participants will be taken on a progressive course of deepening in their understanding and practice.
The Gate of Love/Sha’ar HaHesed welcomes us into both our own and the world’s sacred primordial loving nature. Through developing the ability to respond with softness, gentleness and acceptance to our experience, we learn to reduce our reactivity and meet challenging states of mind, heart and body with love and compassion. We begin to recognize ourselves as both innately beloved and loving, and start to trust the divine ground of love, allowing it to express itself through us in acts of love and care. We open to our passion in a less constricted way, committing to transforming ourselves and the world.
The Gate of Joy/Sha’ar HaSimcha invites us to recognize the inherent goodness and delight of creation and ourselves. Building on the trust developed in the Gate of Love/Sha’ar HaHesed, we learn how to rest our mind on the beauty and joy that is all around and within us. We shift from a habitual “what’s wrong mind” oriented to threat and protection, to a “what’s right mind” that enables playfulness and flexibility. We experience grounded faith, as trust in our basic nature starts to deepen. As we work to deepen our concentration and equanimity, wholesome mind-heart states such as equanimity, joy, gratitude and awe blossom and our natural beneficence shines forth in thought, word and deed. Through directly perceiving the workings of the mind and its unhelpful habitual patterns, we learn to unwind and release those patterns, creating spaciousness and freedom. We come to recognize that happiness is an inside job, available to us from within if we can release our preoccupation with reaching for something external to fill a void.
Having enhanced our sense of safety, ease, openness, trust, and peace in the world through relying on primordial goodness and love, and having developed our insight and skillfulness in working with challenging states of heart, mind and body through the first two gates, a more settled, flexible, secure, and available heart-mind (lev) can now start to develop the insights of the next two gates.
The Gate of Holiness/Sha’ar HaKedusha orients us to divine fullness and teaches us to glimpse our sacred non-separate nature and our natural luminosity. Practices of non-identification (such as with stories of unworthiness or our identity as doers), expansiveness, awareness of awareness, and others will enable us to both release limiting self-notions and directly notice our true sacred nature. Grounded in this basic insight of boundless connection, our ease, delight and equanimity will deepen. Showing up in the world more naturally and spontaneously we are greater able to respond wisely to the suffering within and without and allow our wholesome passion to flow more freely.
The Gate of Divinity/Sha’ar HaElohut orients us to divine emptiness and opens up to us the profound vistas of the radically open and empty (ayin) nature of divinity and our soul. Through understanding more deeply how illusory views of self and world are created, and through practices of releasing our habitual sense of self (bitul ha-ani), seeing the spaciousness inherent in all phenomena (histaklut lo gashmit), and letting go of all structure or boundary (bitul hayesh), we will gradually touch our inherently open nature. Grounded in this insight of boundlessness, wonder, joy, and delight spring forth enabling a lighter and freer way of being in the world. Our reactivity continues to lessen. We can show up for ourselves and others in an even more expansive, flexible, and unconstricted way.
Each gate is a continual work in progress and each gate supports and enhances the others. By moving through them and circling back in ever-deepening ways, we develop the maturity of our practice and create a framework and systematic understanding that will serve us the rest of our lives and lay the groundwork for effective teaching.
Yesod - Foundations - Year 1 - January - October, 2023
Yesod is a deep dive into a systematic approach to practicing Jewish mindfulness meditation and mindful Jewish living. In this program you will deepen your understanding and practice of Jewish mindfulness in particular ways, and you will emerge with a systematic and comprehensive grasp of Jewish mindfulness. This will allow you to integrate disparate aspects of practice and provide a framework that enables truly effective growth and development as a practitioner and teacher.
Our integrated approach will develop practice and theory in a mutually reinforcing and experiential way. You will be trained in concrete practices of liberation and taught both their formal practice and how to integrate them into your daily life while deepening your understanding of the Jewish sources and philosophy behind these practices.
Structure: What You’ll Receive and What You’ll Do
20 Bi-weekly (every other week) live online classes integrating texts, theory and practice, convening alternatingly each month between Sundays and Mondays
20 Guided video/audio meditations and teachings
An extensive curriculum of Jewish mindfulness texts
Guidance for biweekly partnered learning and practice
We’ll match you with another participant / small group to continue the learning outside of class
A Sun-Fri Virtual Jewish Meditation Retreat
4 day-long retreats deepening key aspects of practice and understanding
6 small group meetings with a teacher (3 off retreat / 3 on retreat) to receive personalized instruction in the development of your practice
Whatsapp Group for continued sharing and exploration outside of class
Jewish Mindfulness Training Certificate of Completion
Course Requirements
Regular attendance at classes
Viewing the video recording of any class you are not able to attend as soon as possible so you know the practice, instructions and themes for the next two weeks
Daily practice of at least 20 minutes a day
Text preparation for each class
Biweekly (every other week) hevrutah (partnered learning) to study assigned texts and do assigned practices
Reading assigned articles for class
Attendance at virtual retreats
A short biweekly posting to the Whatsapp group about your experience
Goals and Learning Outcomes
A Systematic framework for the understanding and practice of mindfulness meditation and mindful Jewish living based on selections from the following sources
R. Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira, The Piaseczner Rebbe (20th Cent. Poland)
Modern Mindfulness and Buddhist Teachers (20-21st Cent.)
Hasidism (18th Cent. orig. E. Europe Ashkenazi until today)
Kabbalah (12th Cent. until today, primarily Mizrahi and Sephardi) and other Jewish mysticism
Rabbinic texts (2nd cent until today, orig. middle eastern)
Bible
Key topics in Jewish mindfulness
Access and exposure to core Jewish mindfulness texts and terminology
Learning key terms and acquiring basic fluency in texts in translation
Exposure to key texts
A historical and theological framework for Jewish spiritual texts
Jewish mindfulness practices
Learning and deepening core Jewish mindfulness practices
Learning and exposure to other Jewish mindfulness and spiritual practices (e.g. prayer)
Understanding of Jewish mindfulness in relation to other Jewish practices
Transformational applications
Healing modes of relating to body, mind, heart and soul
Learning how practice integrates into your life
Applying meditation to address physical pain, emotional challenges, relational difficulties, and interpersonal conflict. Basic working understanding of trauma-informed practice for self
Widening the heart and cultivating qualities such as love, compassion, forgiveness, gratitude. awe and joy
Community
Being part of a community of dedicated practitioners
Taught by leading teachers in the field
Entry Requirements
At least 1 year of practice and commitment to a daily practice
Participation in a minimum of one week-long silent mindfulness/ Jewish mindfulness/insight meditation retreat
A desire and commitment to deepen and grow in your Jewish mindfulness practice
Year 2:
Tiferet - Sitting Group Teaching - January - October, 2024
Tiferet intensifies the personal learning and growth of the first year (Yesod) while training you in the skills you need to be an effective teacher of Jewish mindfulness in classes, sitting groups and other similar contexts. Individual growth in practice/understanding and acquiring pedagogical skills will be taught in an integrated way so that each informs and deepens the other.
Tiferet will enable you to take your passion for practice and bring it to others, helping you to become an effective teacher of this spiritual tradition. Through a variety of learning approaches, including workshops and practicums, you will have opportunities to develop and refine your meditation teaching skills.
Structure: What You’ll Receive and What You’ll Do
20 Bi-weekly (every other week) live meetings. This will include:
Teaching and discussion that integrates texts, theory, pedagogy and practice
Pedagogical instruction and faculty reflections on their own teaching
Student Practicums/Teaching Labs
20 Guided video/audio meditations and teachings
Additional curriculum of Jewish mindfulness texts and practices
Guidance for biweekly partnered and individual learning and practice
We’ll match you with another participant and with a small group to continue the learning outside of class
Guidance for peer reflection groups
2 Jewish Meditation Retreats
The first retreat will be faculty-led with faculty giving you a look behind the scenes to help you develop your teaching skills.
The second retreat will provide many opportunities for student facilitation with faculty feedback
4 day-longs
Final Practicum / Closing Project
A combination of small group and individual meetings with teachers to receive personalized instruction in the development of your practice
Whatsapp Group for continued sharing and exploration outside of class
Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certificate
Course Requirements
Regular attendance at classes
Viewing the video recording of any class you are not able to attend before the next class.
Missing no more than 4 classes
Daily practice of at least 30 minutes
Text preparation for each class
Biweekly (every other week) hevrutah (partnered learning) to study assigned texts and do assigned practices
Reading assigned articles for class
Preparation for practicums (whenever it is your turn)
Preparing meditation instruction, teaching, etc.
Refining your teaching through peer-led reflection groups prior to meetings with the teachers
Peer reflection groups
Attendance and teaching on the retreats
Entry Requirements
At least 3 years of daily practice and commitment to ongoing daily practice
A minimum of 3 week-long silent mindfulness/jewish mindfulness/insight meditation retreats (The Yesod retreat counts towards this requirement)
A desire and commitment to deepen and grow in your Jewish mindfulness practice
Completion of Yesod
Goals and Learning Outcomes
Participant will emerge having learned and been exposed to:
Deeper understanding and practice of mindfulness meditation and mindful Jewish living.
Expanding on the Yesod curriculum to introduce new perspectives, texts and practices
Deepening previous topics and practices
Refining practices and understandings
Developing an understanding of the unfolding of practice over time
Pedagogical Skill Training in
Giving talks
Giving meditation instructions
Answering questions
Facilitating small groups
Helping people apply practice to life
Preparing texts, text sheets and materials and how to use Jewish texts in your teaching
Evaluating your teaching
Working with people where they are
Refining instructions, answers etc.
Meeting suffering, confusion, and resistance
Working with students to identify their growing edge
Acquiring a Jewish teaching language and terminology
Community organizing
How to organize and sustain a sitting group in your community
How to leverage relationships with stakeholders to promote and sustain the work
How to work with resistance
Showcasing a variety of different models for sitting groups in different settings (e.g. synagogues, spirituality centers, schools, businesses, etc.)
Responsible, Ethical and Safe Leadership and Pedagogy
Making for safety
Trauma informed approach
DEI informed approach
Teacher student relations
Community
Being part of a community of dedicated, serious practitioners
Creating a community of colleagues in your ongoing teaching and practice
Exposure to excellent teachers
Creating a resource bank
Year 3:
Keter - Retreat Teaching - 2025
Keter will profoundly enrich your practice while preparing you to be able to teach on Jewish mindfulness meditation retreats. This smaller, more intimate intensive program will train you to support practitioners on retreat in their growth and development. Both deepening our practice, the source of all of our teaching, and training in retreat based pedagogical skills, such as individual and group meetings with practitioners, will be foundational to this year.
This year is open to dedicated and experienced practitioners and the completion of Yesod and Tiferet will not be sufficient to be accepted to this program (see entry requirements below).
Structure: What You’ll Receive and What You’ll Do
20 Bi-weekly (every other week) live meetings. This will include
Teaching and discussion that integrates texts, theory, pedagogy and practice
Pedagogical instruction and faculty reflections on their own teaching
Student Practicums/Teaching Labs
Guided video/audio meditations and teachings.
A combination of small group and individual meetings with teachers to receive personalized instruction in the development of your practice.
Additional Curriculum of Jewish mindfulness texts and practices
Guidance for regular partnered and individual learning and practice
We’ll match you with another participant and with a small group to continue the learning outside of class
Give people the option to choose the people in their group. Rank preference.
Guidance for peer reflection groups
Retreats
1 Faculty led retreat at the beginning of the program
1 Student facilitated Retreats with faculty feedback
Participants apprenticing on a Jewish mindfulness retreat with OHL, IJS.
Final Practicum / Final Project
Retreat apprenticeship opportunity
Jewish Mindfulness Retreat Teacher Certificate
Course Requirements
Regular attendance at classes
viewing the video recording of any class you are not able to attend before the next class.
Missing no more than 4 classes
Daily practice of at least 45 minutes (an hour highly recommended)
Text preparation for each class
Bi-weekly (every other week) hevrutah (partnered learning) to study assigned texts and do assigned practices
Reading assigned articles for class
Preparation for practicums (whenever it is your turn)
Preparing meditation instruction, teaching, etc.
Refining your teaching through peer led reflection groups prior to meetings with the teachers
Self Reflection and Peer reflection groups
Student reflection and journaling on master teachers (in program and prior to program)
Attendance and teaching at the retreats
Apprenticing on an Or HaLev, IJS or allied Retreat.
Goals and Learning Outcomes
Learning Outcomes: Participant will emerge having learned and been exposed to:
Deeper understanding and practice of mindfulness and Jewish mindfulness.
Expanding on the Tiferet curriculum to introduce new perspectives, texts and practices
Particular emphasis on more advanced practices and training our view
Deepening previous topics and practices
Refining practices and understandings
Deepening an understanding of the unfolding of practice over time including graduated and direct paths.,
Pedagogical Skill Training in
Reviewing and deepening Tiferet pedagogical skills
Developing ability to hold people collectively and individually in terms of their growth over time.
Further and advanced meditation practice instructions
Leading retreat groups and individual meetings.
Building and Leading a Retreat
Evaluating a retreat
Practicing, Facilitating, Teaching and/or Enabling non-meditation retreat practices (hitbodedut, chanting, prayer, text study)
Responsible, Ethical and Safe Leadership and Pedagogy for Retreats
Trauma informed approach
DEI informed approach
Teacher student relations
Community
Being part of a community of dedicated serious advanced practitioners
Creating a community of colleagues for your ongoing teaching and practice.
Creating the next generation of Jewish mindfulness retreat teachers
Exposure to Excellent Teachers
Building a resource bank
Entry Requirements
At least 5 years of dedicated practice and commitment to a regular practice
A minimum of 8 week-long silent mindfulness/jewish mindfulness/insight meditation retreats (The student led Tiferet virtual retreat will not count for this purpose though the Yesod retreat will as will the faculty led Tiferet retreat)
A desire and commitment to deepen and grow in your Jewish mindfulness practice
Completion of Tiferet
We Are Here
Any questions? Please email Carrie Watkins, our Community Manager at carrie@orhalev.org.
