PM-02 – Enter the Temple: Discovering the Inner Sanctum
Elyssa Joy Auster
Out of destruction comes transformation and the opportunity for wholeness. Tisha B’Av commemorates the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem, and other tragedies the Jewish people have experienced over centuries, yet it leaves the door open for something new. We will explore the joy and creativity that are released by breaking open through four paradigms: the Temple of the Body (Yoga), the Temple of Emotion (Meditation), the Temple of the Mind (Text Study), and the Temple of Beyond (Chanting).
Elyssa Joy Auster has served as the rabbi for a Conservative congregation in Florida and a Reform congregation in Alaska; she has brought inspiration to other congregations in Massachusetts, Illinois, Ohio, and Maryland. She has published in The Forward and in Jewish Philanthropy, is a trained mikveh guide, has led Hallel with Women of the Wall in Jerusalem, and has written and illustrated two children’s books. She a certified yoga teacher, and has been a teacher of contemplative Judaism in diverse venues.
PM-10 – Embodied Teshuvah: A Journey from Brokenness to Wholeness
Josh Schreiber Shalem
Teshuvah can begin not at Rosh Hashanah or even at the first of Elul, but at Tisha B’Av, when the walls we build to shield ourselves from our own fragility collapse like the walls of Jerusalem. What follows is a period not always of rebuilding, but of confronting what is actually there behind those walls; perhaps one can learn to live with one’s self and one’s God with honesty and vulnerability. Through the Awareness Through Movement® developed by the Israeli physicist and Judo master Moshe Feldenkrais, we will follow this path through the experience of our body, learning to attend to, accept, and transform the feelings of brokenness and inadequacy we carry within us. This class is open to anyone with a body; no prior movement experience or ability is necessary. Mats will be provided.
Josh is an active member of Havurat Shalom in Somerville, MA, a certified teacher of the Feldenkrais Method® of Somatic Education, and a performing musician. He loves combining all these interests in the experience of Jewish prayer both privately and as a shaliach tzibur.