Jewish Meditation for Everyone

In this episode, Rabbi Dr. Jay Michaelson explores the concept of hishtavut—the Hebrew term for equanimity—and its role in Jewish spiritual practice. He unpacks how equanimity isn't about achieving a detached state of perfection, but rather finding a dynamic balance which can help us hold life's joys and stresses and, ultimately, discern a wiser response. Ground yourself in his guided meditation for witnessing emotions, cultivating the ability to be with what is, and to respond from a more spacious, loving place.

Join Rebecca Schisler of the IJS Core Faculty for a short mindfulness practice for Lag Ba'Omer, the 33rd of the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot. She explores the Kabbalistic concept of Hod — surrender, acceptance, and splendor — inviting us to soften our grip on how things "should" be, and instead open to gratitude and sacred presence in each moment. In this practice, she guides us to shift from reactivity to wise response, nurturing a "healing gaze" on our lives and our world.

The maror (bitter herbs) of the Passover Seder serves as a powerful metaphor for pain that deserves recognition but not permanent residence in us. In this practice for Passover, Cantor Kerith Spencer-Shapiro explores the spiritual tension between acknowledging life's bitterness and resisting the urge to let it consume us. In this short teaching and meditation, she guides us to sit with our "bitterness," our grief and pain, without being defined by it — discovering that the opposite of bitterness isn't forced cheerfulness, but spaciousness. She closes with Langston Hughes' "Mother to Son," a reminder that we are larger than the wounds we carry, and that liberation means continuing to climb even when the path is dark.

In this episode, we gather in a moment of shared grief and fear, reflecting on recent violence and the weight many are carrying—especially within immigrant communities. Drawing on Jewish wisdom and lived experience, Mariposa Duenas of Jewtina y Co. explores how faith and action together help us endure dark times, reminding us that we are not meant to carry these burdens alone. Join her for a powerful teaching and meditation for this moment, inviting each of us to find courage, connection, and hope by showing up and shouldering the burden for one another.

Join expert Jewish mindfulness teacher Alison Cohen for a short teaching and practice for the Hebrew month of Tevet to cultivate deep emotional awareness, especially of anger, and to attend skillfully to the full range of our feelings as they arise, acknowledging, listening to, and extending compassion towards them all. Through this practice we can experience all emotions as valuable messengers and teachers, rather than as experiences to be judged or suppressed. Join her for this simple mindfulness practice to support our capacity for stability and presence in navigating the complex emotional landscape of being human, and to honor the sacred role of our anger.

In this episode, join mindfulness teacher Nomi Shifrin to explore the reality of pain in our lives, and the surprising light that can be found within it, drawing on the Biblical story of Joseph and the approaching season of Hanukkah and the winter solstice. Through reflections on sensation, presence, and the Kabbalistic notion of divine resource, she invites us to consider how love, compassion, and awareness can help us meet even our darkest moments. Join us for a guided practice to cultivatie pleasantness in the body—building the inner capacity to meet life with softness, confidence, and profound trust.

In this special Thanksgiving-themed episode, Rabbi Shefa Gold explores the inner pathway of gratefulness as a spiritual practice. She offers a short teaching and practice to help us experience how gratefulness opens us to blessing, awakens wonder, dissolves obstacles, and leads to generosity. Her chanting practice using the phrase “Everything flows from You,” from Psalm 87, offers a portal into stillness and deep awareness. Take a few moments to breathe, enter silence, and experience gratefulness as an alive, spacious state—one that energizes spiritual practice and cultivates a generous relationship with the world.

In this episode, Rabba Mira Neshama Niculescu explores the practice of moving slowly and adapting to life's inevitable spiritual and other ascents and descents, especially during the Jewish holiday cycle. Through teachings from Hasidic wisdom and metaphors of rain, dew, storms, and drops, she teaches how wisdom and connection come to us in varied forms—gentle, dripping, flowing, even piercing. Join her for a short meditation to embrace life's oscillations, and to set our intentions for deeper connection, trust, and wholeness in the year ahead.

In this episode, Rabbi Sam Feinsmith of the IJS faculty guides us to prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with a short meditation on the theme of “Seeing Through the Eyes of Love.” Instead of approaching the High Holidays through harsh judgment, he explores how teshuvah, repentance, can be rooted in consciousness of loving presence within our own awareness. Rabbi Feinsmith roots this teaching in Unetaneh Tokef, a key High Holiday prayer, and wisdom from the great medieval Jewish thinker Maimonides, offering a guided meditation which invites us to feel seen by the Divine with infinite love and compassion – and to bring that perspective into self-forgiveness and renewal.

In this episode, Alison Cohen explores how mindful awareness can help us shift from autopilot reactivity to intentional, compassionate response. Rooted in the themes of teshuvah — return and transformation — she helps us reflect on how pausing, sensing, and staying in contact with the present moment creates space for choice and change. Join her as she leads us, through breath, reflection, and gentle inquiry, to reconnect with our capacity for choice and to meet each moment with kindness.

In this episode, Rabbi Shir Meira Feit explores the rich interplay between movement and stillness in Judaism — especially the layered, elusive nature of stillness in the body, heart, and mind. Through the lens of Kabbalistic wisdom and awareness of this season in the Jewish year, they reflect on the spiritual energy of the month of Sivan and the Hebrew letter Zayin, inviting us into a practice honoring both stillness and motion. Join Rabbi Shir Meira Feit for a short meditation to sense the pulse of life, even in stillness.

In this episode, Rabbi Jenny Solomon explores how we might understand atonement not as erasure, but as gently covering our wounds, as with a bandage or blanket, with the intention to heal and learn from them and move forward. She connects the ancient ritual of Yom Kippur with breathwork and mindful awareness, creating space for both rootedness and rising. Join her to practice tending to our past mistakes with compassion, covering them over -- not to conceal, but to acknowledge and heal, to return and renew.

In this meditation for Passover, Rabbi Dorothy Richman explores how the Seder ritual of dipping spring greens in salt water represents our ability to accept both freshness and bitterness, both joy and sorrow. She invites us to notice and embrace the "brutiful" nature of existence, where seeming opposites are actually unified experiences within our bodies. Join her for a short, beautiful teaching and meditation for tasting ancestral tears and hopes, and remembering that we have navigated narrow places before -- and can find our way to openness again.