Shabbaton with Rabbi Jill Hammer and Shoshana Jedwab:
Finding the Sacred in Our Everyday Lives

Register now for the sessions you wish to attend!

Friday, May 17 - First Unitarian Society

• 6:00 p.m. - Catered Shabbat Meal (please register by May 10 so we can order your meal)
• 7:00 - 8:30 p.m. - Kabbalat Shabbat Service

Saturday, May 18 - First Unitarian Society

• 9:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. - Shabbat Shacharit service
• 12:00 - 1:30 p.m. - Potluck lunch (sign up to bring food)
• 1:30 - 3:00 p.m. - Drum circle, singing, dancing
• 7:30 - 9:30 p.m. - Teaching: Dreams and Meditative Journeys; Havdalah

Sunday, May 19 - Address provided following registration

• 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. - Teaching: Finding the Sacred During Challenging Times

Since 2007, Shaarei Shamayim has hosted a Renewal Shabbaton every two years or so (with a longer gap due to the pandemic). In this way we have been able to learn and celebrate with some of the most outstanding leaders in the world of Jewish Spirituality and Jewish Renewal.

This year we are thrilled to announce that Rabbi Jill Hammer and Shoshana Jedwab will be joining us. Rabbi Hammer co-founded the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute and is the author of a number of books on Jewish spirituality. Shoshana Jedwab is a percussionist, singer-songwriter, worship leader, and prize-winning Jewish educator.

Together, they will be leading us in a weekend of celebration, teaching, prayer, drumming, and song on the theme "Finding the Sacred In Our Everyday Lives." Our Shabbat immersion will include creative services on Friday evening and Saturday morning, a kiddush lunch, a shabbos afternoon session of singing, music, and drumming, and an evening Havdalah service. The Shabbaton will conclude with a gathering Sunday morning. We encourage you to immerse yourself in the weekend. Everyone is welcome to attend all or parts of the weekend as you feel called and are able.

Read our March/April 2024 Newsletter for a personal testimonial and more about shabbatonim.

Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, is an author, teacher, midrashist, mystic, poet, essayist, and priestess. She is committed to an earth-based and wildly mythic view of the world in which nature, ritual, and story connect us to the body of the cosmos and to ourselves. She has been called “a Jewish bard.” She specializes in ancient and contemporary midrash, mysticism, ritual, and spirituality. She is also the co-founder of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, a program in spiritual leadership for Jewish women; and the author of 5 books and numerous articles.

Shoshana Jedwab is a concert performer, singer/songwriter, prayer and ritual leader, hand drummer, drum circle facilitator, and sacred text teacher. Shoshana has been an award-winning Jewish educator since 1991. As a sacred music artist and teacher, Shoshana offers an authentic voice through her music making, beat-possessed hands, traditional Jewish scholarship, original song recordings, skillful ritual leadership, and prize-winning creative teaching. She creates ritual experience and fosters embodied prayer with her leadership.

Learn more about Rabbi Jill and Shoshana:

Rabbi Jill Hammer website
Shoshana Jedwab website
Kohenet and Jewish Priestesses by Brian Johnson