Rabbi Lauren Tuchman

A new offering with Or HaLev

We live in profoundly challenging and unsteady times. I have found, again and again, that cultivating my own capacity for inner resourcing has been absolutely essential. There are many pieces to that and one of the most significant and transformative has been the practice of Jewish mindfulness meditation. I am incredibly blessed to have just completed the Gates of Awareness three-year Jewish Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher Training Program under the auspices of Or HaLev and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.

I am so grateful to be offering a new four-session Jewish Mindfulness course through Or HaLev called Opening To Presence: Where Jewish Mindfulness Meets Lived Disability Experience. Taught over four Thursdays in the month of Iyar (the only full month of the Jewish year when the omer is counted each night), we will co-create a rich, intentional container of practice that is an affinity space for practitioners with disabilities. I have noticed, again and again, as have many others unfortunately, that too many mindfulness spaces unintentionally exclude practitioners with disabilities or make us feel a sense of profound non-belonging, which undermines the foundation upon which practice rests.

If you or someone you know is interested in Jewish mindfulness practice and resonates with a space like this, you are warmly welcome to join us. Registration is live! The course dates and times are as follows:

Thursdays April 23, 30, May 7 and 14 from 12:00PM-1:15PM EDT/9:00AM-10:15PM PDT/17:00-1815 GMT/1900-20:15 IST.

Here is a bit of the course description:

“This course, intentionally designed by and for practitioners with disabilities, offers a space to explore the intersection of Jewish mindfulness practice and lived disability experience. Out of an acknowledgement that too often meditation spaces have been inaccessible to practitioners with disabilities, we will together co-create a field of practice and learning in which all parts of ourselves are warmly welcomed as they are. Through cultivation practice we will plant seeds of supportive mind states and qualities such as pleasantness and compassion. 

Living in times as challenging as these it is even more important that we resource ourselves to meet our experiences with gentleness. Too many people with disabilities have been conditioned to believe that we are separate, unlovable and that who we are is fundamentally wrong. Through practice, we open ourselves slowly and gradually to the deepest knowing that non-separation applies to us, too. The Jewish tradition teaches that every human being is created in the Image of the Divine. There are no exceptions to this. We, too, are included. Jewish mindfulness practice can help us have a felt-sense of our belovedness and help us remember who we truly are.”

Here again is the link to register: Opening to Presence: Where Jewish Mindfulness Meets Lived Disability Experience

I look forward to practicing with you!