Nehirim East 2006

The 2006 Nehirim Spiritual Retreat:
May 19-21, 2006
Elat Chayyim
Accord, NY

About the Retreat | This Year’s Schedule
Highlights of Last Year | Tachlis: Costs and Registration
This Year’s Teachers | Sponsoring Organizations
Questions/Find out More

The Nehirim Retreat:
A unique weekend of community, connection, and spiritual growth

The Nehirim spiritual retreat is a soulful, heartful gathering where you can connect with your community, relax and refresh, and explore your spiritual path - forming connections that last a lifetime. Our retreats feature:

· A wide range of spiritual options, from traditional shabbat davening to meditation, yoga, and dance.
· Connections with GLBT Jews of all ages, religious affiliations, and walks of life.
· Workshops and seminars featuring a wide range of teachers, including Rabbi Jill Hammer, Jay Michaelson, Rabbi Jacob Staub, Ken Page, Judith Miller, Susan Bash, Shoshana Jedwab, David Berger, and more.
· Opportunities to open your heart, participate and lead ritual, or just be yourself, be in nature, and be with a diverse, welcoming community.
· Dancing, singing, kosher (mostly vegetarian) food, an eruv, tennis courts, hot tub, country roads - nu, it’s the Catskills!

Partial Schedule for the 2006 Retreat!

Note: this schedule is so subject to change, it’s already changed.

Friday, May 19 - 21st Iyar - 36th day of Omer
2:00 Arrival, registration, snacks
4:00 Welcome and opening program with Ken Page
5:00 Get ready for shabbat
Mikvas for men, women, and “whatever”
6:45 Optional meditation before Shabbat
7:15 Candlelighting and shabbat services (facilitated by David Berger, Susan Bash, Jill Hammer, and Chani Getter)
8:30 Dinner, singing & drumming
10:00 Meet your mishpacha groups
11:00 Storytelling with David Kerchner

Shabbat, May 20 - 22nd Iyar - 37th day of Omer
8:00 Light breakfast available
8:00 Morning spiritual practice:
Morning yoga with Craig Hanauer
Silent meditation with instruction with Zvi Bellin
9:00 Torah study with Amichai Lau-Lavie
9:45 Davening:
Traditional davening & Torah reading (facilitated by David Berger, Bob Goldfarb, and Jarah Greenfield)
Contemplative/Renewal davening with Rabbi Jill Hammer &
Shoshana Jedwab
12:00 Lunch
1:15 Afternoon Session 1 (choose one)
Rabbi Jacob Staub, Queering Spiritual Directioning
Noach Dzmura, Androgynos: Gender Variance in Talmud
Julia Watts Belzer, Entering the Garden: Laying Down Roots in Our Own Sacred Ground
Nature walk
2:30 Afternoon Session 2 (choose one)
Gabriel Blau, Love is a Four-Letter Word
Amichai Lau-Lavie, Role Playing- Wrestling with the Divine
Jarah Greenfield, Gender Boundaries in the Zohar
3:30 Free time: tennis, walks, naps, massage, informal study groups
5:00 Optional discussion groups:
Craig Hanauer, Ambivalent about the practice of Judaism: Alternative means of seeking G-d
Julia Watts Belser, Discussion group for survivors of abuse and those in recovery
Zvi Bellin, Newly Out? Not Out? Coming Out?
6:00 Afternoon spiritual practice (choose one):
Traditional Mincha, Yoga, or Guided meditation with Ken Page
7:00 Seudah Shlishit (Third meal)
8:00 Mishpacha/Affinity groups
9:00 Maariv/ Evening service, Omer & Havdalah (Zvi Bellin and Corey Friedlander)
10:00 Aufruf of Gabriel Blau and Dylan Stein
11:00-12:00 Night Program (choose one)
Dancing with Bruce Bierman
Night journeying with Shoshana Jedwab & Jill Hammer

Sunday, May 21 - 23rd Iyar - 37th day of Omer
7:30 Light breakfast available
8:00 Morning spiritual practice (choose one)
Morning yoga with Craig Hanauer
Morning meditative davening with Chani Getter
Traditional shacharit service Jarah Greenfield
9:30 Morning session (choose one)
Hineini: Coming Out in School (screening and discussion with Shulamit Izen)
11:00 Mishpacha/Affinity groups
12:00 Closing session
1:00 Lunch
Bookstore will be open
Tzeitchem l’shalom!

Highlights and Feedback from 2005

Last year’s retreat was an amazing weekend. Here’s some feedback we received:

· For me it was a weekend of personal growth, great fun, warmth, renewed spiritual connection, and deep relaxation… I met people this weekend that I know I’ll continue seeing.

· I really have no critique to offer of the program. I tried to think of one highlight, and came up with a longer list instead. For me they were: Judith Miller’s workshop - the prayer dance and drum and subsequent dance session - Jill Hammer’s Lag B’Omer workshop - a few hours on Saturday afternoon when a resident of the Elat Chayyim community and I (on the piano) played Handel, Mozart and Bach in the barn while others wandered in and danced - some of the prayer/chanting sessions - especially the Friday evening, and the Havdallah services - the meals: both the conversation and the cooking I guess that’s just about the whole weekend.

Last year, we had over 60 lesbian, gay, bi, and trans Jews come together, from all points on the Jewish-ideological spectrum, to daven, talk, debate, meditate, dance, eat, and celebrate together. Highlights included:

· An inspiring (really) opening program led by Ken Page
· Spiritual mikva - a first for many participants
· Kabbalat Shabbat with CBST cantorial intern David Berger
· Drumming and impromptu tisch on Friday night
· Yes, the hot tub
· Mishpacha/affinity groups
· Susan Bash’s amazing movement work
· Yoga, meditation, davening options on shabbos morning
· Nature walks in perfect weather
· Marla Brettschneider’s controversial seminar, “Intro to Queer Theory for Gay & Lesbian People”
· Judith Z. Miller’s workshop in spiritual exploration
· The second annual “Sonic Mikva” and drum circle
· Hayyim Obadyah’s workshop on “Who’s Your Daddy - Biblical Images of the Divine”
· Rabbi Jacob Staub’s workshop on creating poetry & midrash to explore our GLBT Jewish journeys
· And of course, the food

Tachlis: What does it cost, where do I register

The basic cost of the retreat is $210. This includes full room & board, in quad rooms, for three days and two nights, as well as all the programming you can possibly go to during that time. There are also upgrades available for single rooms and double rooms. Generous financial aid is available, especially for students. Thanks to a generous grant we received, we can offer free registration to a limited number of students.

Childcare is available free of charge — families come every year!

The weekend lasts from 3:00 on Friday until 2:00 on Sunday. We do ask that retreatants stay for the entire weekend.

Registration is handled by Elat Chayyim. You can now register online at jewishretreatcenter.org or you can call 800-398-2630.

This Year’s Confirmed Teachers

Zvi Bellin has, for the past five years, led a variety of workshops on Jewish spirituality and mysticism. He holds an M.A.degree in Counseling and Guidance from NYU, and will begin his PhD study in Pastoral Counseling at Loyola College this Fall. Zvi’s most recent interests include the spirituality of “dark places” and the formation of personal meaning outside the “normal and acceptable.”

David Berger is the cantorial intern at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah and a volunteer for WorldPride Jerusalem 2006. He has a Masters in Jewish Philosophy from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and is a third year cantorial student at the Hebrew Union College.

Gabriel Blau is the founder of The God & Sexuality Conference. He has spoken in the US and Israel to camp groups, yeshiva students, colleges and graduate schools and at open lectures. Both the general and gay Israeli media have covered his work as an activist. He is the author of “Two Truths: Living as a Religious Gay Jew” in Lawrence Schimmel’s book Found Tribe, (Sherman Asher Publishing, 2002.) Gabriel received his BA in Theology from Bard College. He is currently editing the upcoming book Homosexuality and the World Religions: Traditional Views and Modern Responses.

Noach Dzmura recently completed his M.A. at the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies of the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, CA. His thesis is entitled “Textual Relations in the Restroom: Countering Inauthenticity in Jewish Transgender Lives.” A recipient of the Haas-Koshland Award, Mr. Dzmura will be studying at Pardes Institute for Jewish Studies in Jerusalem in 2006-07.

Jarah Greenfield is a rabbinical student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and has also studied at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education. She has been the Interim Principal of B’nai Jeshurun Hebrew School in New York and serves on the board of Rabbis for Human Rights.

Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, is the director and co-founder of Tel Shemesh, a website celebrating and creating Jewish earth-based traditions, and the author of The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons (forthcoming September 2006). She is a poet, writer, myth-maker, and midrashist who has been published in many journals and anthologies, and is the author of Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women, a collection of modern midrash. Rabbi Hammer teaches in Manhattan and around the country on ancient and contemporary midrash, bibliodrama, ritual-making, and the cycles of Jewish time, and is currently an instructor at the Academy for Jewish Religion. She received a doctorate in social psychology from the University of Connecticut in 1996 and was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2001..

Craig Hanauer is a Kripalu Certified Yoga Teacher, a Board Certified Art Therapist, and a longtime program director at Kripalu Center in Lenox MA. Currently much of Craig’s work involves teaching yoga to children with special needs and teaching yoga teachers to work with this special population. Craig has been teaching yoga to adults in NYC for the past 6 years, and has maintained his own personal practice for the past 15 years.

Shoshana Jedwab is a musician, performer, and prize-winning Jewish educator. She is the founding facilitator of the JCC Drum Circle and Sonic Mikva, an interactive program of music, movement, and spirituality. Shoshana weaves texts and story with percussion, comedy and creative play for synagogues, gatherings, and theater. She has composed and performed music for the play A Song of Solomon, Storahtelling, and Tel Shemesh events. She is co-founder of Tel Shemesh and director of its Sacred Clown Project. Shoshana has trained in psychodrama and bibliodrama. She serves as the Jewish Studies Coordinator for the A.J. Heschel Middle School in New York City, and teaches sixth grade Judaic Studies.

Daniel Kertzner has been telling stories at schools, museums, synagogues for twenty years.

Amichai Lau-Lavie is an Israeli-born mythologist, storyteller and teacher of Judaic Literature, recently hailed by Time Out NY as ‘Super Star of David’ and ‘iconoclastic mystic,’ and as ‘one of the most interesting thinkers in the Jewish world’ by the NY Jewish Week. Amichai is a Synagogue 2000 fellow, a consultant to the Reboot Network, and the recipient of a Joshua Venture Fellowship award 2002-2004. He serves on the Board of Directors of Bikkurim, an incubator for new Jewish ideas.

Jay Michaelson is the director of Nehirim: A Spiritual Initiative for GLBT Jews (www.nehirim.org). A teacher of Kabbalah, spirituality and Embodied Judaism, Jay is an adjunct professor at City College, and has taught at the Skirball Center, Yale University, the Burning Man festival, Makor, Elat Chayyim, the JCC in Manhattan, and many other institutions. He holds an M.A. in Religious Studies from Hebrew University, is in the Bayit Chadash rabbinic ordination program, and also holds a J.D. from Yale and B.A. from Columbia. In addition, Jay recently completed the Jewish Meditation Advanced Training program at Elat Chayyim, and sat a 40-day silent meditation retreat in the fall of 2004. A finalist for the 2003 Koret Young Writer on Jewish Themes Award, Jay’s recent work includes “Da’at” published in Mentsh: On Being Jewish and Queer (2004), The Inflected Letters: Stories of Faith and Desire, and a collection of homoerotic mystical love poems entitled The Embrace (both forthcoming), as well as regular features in the Forward newspaper. He has lectured and written extensively on queer Jewish theology, halachic issues around homosexuality, and GLBT Jewish culture, and has led numerous workshops and seminars, including Nehirim’s monthly Queer Theology Salon.

Ken Page is a psychotherapist, workshop leader, and lecturer who offers groups and trainings on intimacy, spirituality, and sexuality. He believes that gay, bisexual, and transgender women and men hold unique gifts and that healing involves rediscovering and embracing these gifts that have often been shunned. He is also delighted to be a new father…and his 4 year old son David will be joining us on campus.

Rabbi Jacob J. Staub is Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Spirituality at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, where he served as Academic Vice President for 17 years and where he was ordained. He served as editor of the Reconstructionist magazine. He is the founder and director of the first program in Jewish Spiritual Direction at a rabbinical seminary. He teaches medieval Jewish studies, Jewish meditation, and Jewish spirituality. He is the author of The Creation of the World According to Gersonides and the co-author of Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach. He came out as a gay man five years ago.

Sponsoring Organizations

The 2005 Nehirim Spiritual retreat was sponsored by a wide range of GLBT and allied Jewish organizations: Elat Chayyim, JQYouth, Beth Chayim Chadashim (L.A.), the Bnai Jeshurun Gay Men’s Havurah, the God and Sexuality Conference, the JCC of Manhattan, Keshet-JTS, and Keshet-Boston.

For 2006, we are in discussions with the World Congress of GLBT Jews to make the Nehirim retreat an official World Congress retreat. Watch this space for more details.

Questions?

If you would like more information, if you would like to volunteer to teach or lead services, or if your organization would like to cosponsor the retreat, you can always email us at info[at]nehirim.org.