Seven Tuesdays, 5:30-7, Beginning August 4
V’nahar yotzei me’eden — "A river flows forth from Eden to water the garden." (Genesis 2:10)
This beautiful image from Torah is taken up in the mystical text of the Zohar to represent the river that flows through all of Creation, and through each of us, teaching us that the world is always Coming Into Being, through our intention and attention.
Rabbi Rachel Barenblat teaches, “There are seven Shabbatot between Tisha b'Av and Rosh Hashanah, called the Seven Weeks of Consolation. Having delved into the depths of human trauma and suffering on Tisha b'Av, now we are called to draw on what we learned there in order to propel us in teshuvah, repentance, re/turn, turning-toward-God.” Following Av, in the month of Elul, we feel the presence of the Divine as the Beloved, close to us and available to help us transform.
Rabbi Alan Lew, of blessed memory, a Buddhist rabbi details the profoundly psychological and spiritual journey of the High Holy Days in his book, This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared. He brings us with him on the journey from the commemoration of the destruction of the temple on Tisha b'Av to the Days of Awe with stories and personal insights that resonate with our own experience of returning, of teshuvah.
Over the course of this seven-week class, we will have the opportunity to grieve the world that is falling away and the patterns that no longer serve, and envision the world that is coming into being – in each of us and in our collective. The class will assist us in preparing for the upcoming High Holy Days as well as being its own, complete spiritual practice. Each session will include a passage for contemplation from This is Real, a teaching from the Cosmic Tree of Life, and an opportunity for experiential engagement, creative responses and sharing.
This group/class will be facilitated by Dr. Shoshana Fershtman, Reb Judith Goleman, Basha Hirshfeld, and Barbara Lesch McCaffry
(Art by Susie Stonefield Miller.)
Shoshana Fershtman, J.D., Ph.D., is a psychologist and Jungian analyst in private practice in Santa Rosa and a core faculty member at the Depth Psychology Masters’ program at Sonoma State University. She has spent many years studying the Jewish mystical tradition and the re-emergence of the Sacred Feminine in Judaism. She is completing a book on reconnection with Judaism in the wake of collective trauma.
Rabbinic Pastor Judith Goleman, MFT, is a chaplain and also has a private practice in individual and couple counseling in Sebastopol (actually currently by Zoom). As teenager she fell in love with the joyous tales of the Hasidic Rabbis of the 18th century, who saw God as the deep nature of everything in Creation (including us in our true potential). As an adult she encountered this spirit in the Jewish Renewal movement, and was lucky to study for her ordination as a Rabbinic Pastor in this spiritual approach. It also informs her psychotherapy practice.
Barbara (Basha) Hirschfeld has been a student of Buddhism for over 25 years, and of Judaism all her life. She is one of a few lucky students of Ani Pema Chodron and through her of the Shambhala lineage, as first taught by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. She teaches meditation in the North Bay at various venues and owns and runs a retreat space in west Sonoma County called “Open Sky Retreat Space.” Her favorite thing is to bring together the two wisdom traditions, and to explore how her Buddhist training can inform her Jewish faith.
Barbara Lesch McCaffry, Ph.D, has been exploring and untangling the work of contemporary feminist writers and poets since her days as an undergraduate student and it remains a passion. She taught in Sonoma State's interdisciplinary program, the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies, as well as in the Departments of English, American Multicultural Studies, Global Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies. Since 2000, she has also been actively involved in Holocaust and genocide education. She is currently the convener of Ner Shalom’s Beit Midrash: Lifelong Jewish Learning.