Jewish clergy, educators, and other Jewish professionals: You are invited to join author and master mindfulness teacher, Yael Shy, and Rabbi Miriam Margles of the IJS Senior Core Faculty for a special edition of Flourish—a transformative 12-week program in Jewish mindfulness.

As a Jewish professional, you are regularly asked to lead in contexts where others are facing grief and heartbreak, fear and pain. Your community turns to you to guide and model the capacity to be clear and responsive, open-hearted, and present with the most difficult and most beautiful realities of life. No doubt, these demands and expectations have been significantly more challenging since October 7, 2023, and since the recent U.S. elections.

And yet, we cannot lead wisely when we feel reactive, depleted, or burnt out. We can only model what we ourselves embody—with skill, mindful awareness, and abiding sacred connection.

Flourish will offer you the space, tools, confidential community, and guidance to restore your own resilience and equilibrium while cultivating the self-awareness, insight, and skill to lead with greater wisdom. Flourish is designed to renew and deepen your meditation practice, reduce suffering and stress, and support you to access a vast and stable source of resilience, awareness, and joy.

Flourish features: 10 live practice sessions; two online mini-retreats; digestible, clear instructional videos; a rich array of grounding Jewish sources; guided audio meditations; journaling prompts; break-out groups for reflection and support; and chevruta (partner) practice. In confidential breakout groups, participants will be grouped by profession (eg. rabbis, educators, lay leaders, etc.) and will have opportunities to develop connections with other participants to support Jewish spiritual growth and leadership.

At the conclusion of the experience, you will have the (optional) opportunity to prepare and lead other participants in a meditation and receive feedback. Those who choose this option will receive a certification in Jewish Mindful Practices from Mindfulness Consulting, LLC.

This program runs from January 14 – April 1, 2025. Click the button below to learn more and register.