Pesach Seder Prep Hallel-Nirtzah: The Night That Shines Like Day ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.
Mar 24, 2021•10 min
Pesach Seder Prep Barech: Embodying That Which We Hope For ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.
Mar 24, 2021•6 min
Pesach Seder Prep Tzafun: Tasting the Hidden Light ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.
Mar 24, 2021•8 min
Pesach Seder Prep Shulchan Orech: Being Okay ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.
Mar 23, 2021•3 min
Pesach Seder prep Maror-Korech: The Other Side of Bitterness ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.
Mar 22, 2021•15 min
An overarching kavannah/intention for the Pesach seder - being free, making space for our pain, leaning into our weakness and redeeming it. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.
Mar 21, 2021•14 min
Pesach Seder Prep, Steps 7 and 8 Motzi-Matza: Receiving Life Through and Beyond Constraints ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.
Mar 20, 2021•9 min
Pesach Seder Prep #6 Rachta - Cleansing Ourselves from Limiting Beliefs We've told our story. Now we have a chance to bathe in the faith that our redemption is real. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan....
Mar 20, 2021•5 min
Passover Seder Prep #5 Maggid - The Questions That Free Us ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.
Mar 19, 2021•16 min
Pesach Seder prep Here we pick up the whole matzah for all to see and break it into two. This sets into motion the redemptive process that grows specifically from brokenness, and develops into the greater, hidden light that is nurtured through the lived experience of each and every one of us. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institu...
Mar 17, 2021•16 min
Pesach Seder Prep Karpas is the true beginning of the Seder experience, when we encounter the paradox of this night - the newness and pain, rebirth and suffering, growing and drowning. Here we begin to feel the expansive space that holds the totality of this moment, and becomes the ground from which we can hope to be redeemed. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part ...
Mar 16, 2021•15 min
The second stage of the Pesach seder offers us the opportunity to put our intentions for the night into practice. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.
Mar 14, 2021•8 min
Spiritual guidance and preparation for the Passover seder. Finding Seder/"order" amidst chaos, creating holiness in the here and now.
Mar 12, 2021•16 min
The Sages teach that the salvation of Purim has something to do with Moshe being born and dying in the month of Adar. They also teach that Purim is the day of true acceptance of Torah, when the event of Mount Sinai was ultimately fulfilled. In this very personal rendering, R' Ami explores the themes of birth and death, of traumatic separation and loss of self, and the possibility of a Torah that emerges when a self is expressed on the other side of that trauma.
Feb 24, 2021•59 min
Jacob's character is one of paradox and pulling polarities. He is the youngest and the oldest, he is a man of truth and is embroiled in deceit, he is Yaakov and is Yisrael. Here we explore the competing energies that pull us in different directions, and the aspects of ourselves that hold polarized identities, and the possibility of touching a wholeness that encompasses both ends of the spectrum. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https:...
Nov 27, 2020•41 min
"Yitzchak went out to be a bush in the field" - Immersing Ourselves in the Field of Experience A brief teaching and body scan to invite us into attentive presence. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.
Nov 27, 2020•18 min
We leave Yom Kippur with a strong awareness of our mortality, and we enter Sukkot to rejoice within our temporary home, under the passing shadows, within this temporal life. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute . Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page . Audio is by David Kwan ....
Oct 06, 2020•54 min
Our liturgy speaks a lot about God as King or Melech, and even more intensively during the High Holidays. What is a Melech? How might we relate to this encounter with God when we have never stood before a King? Based on a Kabbalistic teaching on the meaning of the word Melech, this is an exploration of a way to come into contact with the visceral sense of a Melech within our own experience of being alive.
Sep 17, 2020•18 min
Shofar: Broken Whole How do we bring our parts together to stand before our Creator? Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RW7XP05U6O5L_IuLaVrGe3Qc_LP1pdeE6epsoowk1ZE/edit ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute . Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page . Audio is by David Kwan ....
Sep 12, 2020•53 min
Tisha b'Av - a day for questions with no answers. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute . Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page . Shefa's logo is the "Returning Light Meditation" by Avraham Loewenthal . Audio is by David Kwan ....
Jul 28, 2020•44 min
Thoughts and teachings on the Three Weeks, and the spiritual stance of learning to be with all that is not right. Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gIYF4BJ1_e-idp-qyTEUlU1hX_i3fKT3QBnMmuFUQ9Y/edit?usp=sharing ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute . Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page . S...
Jul 14, 2020•58 min
"Moshe didn't know who was speaking to him..." -- Bamidbar Rabba 14:20 "'And nobody knows Moshe's burial place'... Even Moshe doesn't know where he was buried" -- Sotah 14a Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14j2Q09ByioGFJJZiDy2jhP4ePuW7Xn8tuOYMar1yEI4/edit ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute . Music is by Rabbi Dani...
Jul 03, 2020•1 hr 9 min
Dipping into the Torah that can carry us through. This piece from the Piaseczner Rebbe speaks of accessing a Self that exists beyond and within, a point of contact with the Divine in our root, that paves the way for a radical new framework of what it looks like to live with faith. Sources: Derech Hamelech, Parshat Nasso תר״ץ ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part fr...
Jun 26, 2020•1 hr 11 min
In honor of Lag Ba'omer, thoughts on making space for beauty to emerge, for secrets to be noticed and heard, and for love to be sought after. Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d66bYRaVxAy2lnWPS_zYiyOIpooL17RkHjPEdFGr9Lc/edit ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his ...
May 11, 2020•45 min
With Lag Be'omer approaching, Rabbi Ami guides us through the story of Rebbe Shimon Bar Yochai, exploring its connections to sefirat ha'omer, the tragedy of Rebbe Akiva's students, the hidden dimensions of Torah - and ultimately, the potential for healing that this story contains. Technical difficulties affected the sound quality of this class. However, we decided to share it for its timely content. The audio evens out after the first 7 or so minutes. Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/...
May 07, 2020•54 min
On Seder night we’re obligated to “see ourselves in every generation, as if we left Egypt.” This is not just a metaphor - it is offering a practical, experiential guideline to help us engage in a story from our past, and to participate in liberating ourselves in the present. Based on a close reading of the book of Exodus and a powerful teaching from the Piaseczner Rebbe, this class explores the liberating power of seeing and being seen, and the redemptive power of sharing a quality of vision wit...
Apr 12, 2020•46 min
Many of us throughout the world are staying home these days due to quarantine and general guidelines around Coronavirus. Here Ami shares some thoughts and teachings about making a spiritual home, turning our house into a place of prayer, and our shared world into a house for God.
Mar 15, 2020•29 min
Dive into the everlasting nature of Purim, the redemption that takes place in light and shadows. Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CsTV0u9iUTSETy28sFk1ixM_6W4t3L2h43aiclKXq2I/edit?usp=sharing ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute . Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page . Audio is by David ...
Mar 03, 2020•1 hr 2 min
Episode 39 In this session we continue our exploration of the postures of prayer with the Maharal and a stunning piece from the Zohar, describing how we fall before God, and are lifted by none other than God. Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cOyQS0h0uwS_g3y_9DbSaJd8EHLOTHd_xZesUuxNgic/edit?usp=sharing
Feb 24, 2020•53 min
Episode 38 Is bowing just an add-on to our prayers, a nice ritual that accompanies parts of tefillah? Or is it part and parcel of tefillah itself? What would that look like? Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tSMYjxAJGVGTA0BCBOh5Km-4-8xVYc29Fj0eDFNOZSE/edit?usp=sharing ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute . Music is ...
Feb 17, 2020•41 min