Spirituality

Spiritual
Practice

Reconstructionist
rabbi offers
workshop on
ecstatic chanting.

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SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN

Staff Writer

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VT's T;vvw, To Tven ye MEITEM1

Rabbi Shefa Gold

[the light hidden within the
words]."
Rabbi Gold, a graduate of the
Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
in Wyncote, Pa., is a teacher of spiri-
tual leadership and Jewish medita-
tion through the practice of chant.
She has been conducting lectures
and workshops in renewal of
Judaism in the United States,
Europe, Israel and Latin America for
10 years.
The weekend in Ann Arbor will
include a Friday night and Saturday
Shabbaton, sponsored by Pardes
Hannah. A Sunday workshop will
focus on the development of a spiri-
tual practice, defined as a set of
international gestures capable of
transforming and deepening rela-
tionships. Sponsors of this workshop
are Pardes Hannah, Beth Israel
Congregation, Temple Beth Emeth,
the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist
Havurah and Southeast Michigan
Coalition on the Environment and
life. ❑

hen she arrives in Ann
Arbor from New Mexico,
Rabbi Shefa Gold will be
bringing teaching tools
for the practice of chanting.
Conducting a weekend-long pro-
gram, "Me Olam ad Olam From
World to World: Rooting Ourselves
in the Infinite," she will teach the
use of chanting as a vehicle for
prayer, healing and connection to
one's inner self, each other and God.
Evelyn Neuhaus, a member of
Pardes Hannah, a Jewish Renewal
Minyan in Ann Arbor, describes
chanting as "a form of active medita-
tion" in the Jewish mystical tradi-
tion. Neuhaus' group is co-sponsor-
ing the program with Rabbi Gold,
Friday-Sunday, April 28-30.
"From my own practice,
when I'm chanting, using
meditation as prayer, it pro-
vides a very intimate way for
The Shabbaton weekend includes a
me to be in connection with
Kabbalat Shabbat service and _dinner 6-
God," says Linda Jo Doctor,
I0 p.m. Friday, April 28, and service,
administrator of Pardes
lunch and session on ecstatic chant 10
Hannah.
a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, April 29, at the
Her husband, Rabbi Elliot K.
Friends Meeting House at 1420 Hill
Ginsberg, is a founder of the
Street, Ann Arbor. Cost of the
three-year-old organization,
Shabbaton is $160 with meals/$140
which offers alternative minyan
Without meals.
services twice monthly at Ann
The workshop will be held 10 a.m. 2
Arbor's Beth Israel
.m.
Sunday, April 30, at Beth Israel
Congregation as well as periodic
ongregation Garfunkel-Shteingart
study sessions and holiday cele-
Activity Center, 2010 Washtenaw.
brations.
Workshop cost is $36.
Neuhaus describes the
For information on the weekend or
chanting as sacred phrases
Pardes Hannah, call Linda Jo Doctor,
"repeated for extended periods
(734) 332-4940.
of time, allowing the heart to
open to experience ecstatic
states, and to receive haganuz

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