I am Rabbinical Student in the Jewish Renewal Ordination Program, ALEPH, and I feel a deep sense of belonging in the lineage or Reb Zalman Shachter-Shalomi, Of Blessed Memory, and the students who he ordained, many of whom have been my beloved teachers. My current Jewish spiritual practices involve Hebrew chanting, traditional liturgical prayer, laying tefillin, wearing a tallit, leyning Torah, Jewish meditation practices, and contemplative Hasidic text reading. I have sat four 6-day silent Jewish meditation retreats with Or Halev.

From the ages of ten to eighteen I was deeply immersed and involved in an ashram community of the Aghor lineage, including living for a year in Varanasi, India when I was fourteen, at a Hindu ashram. I practiced Hindu mantra meditation, followed our Guru’s teachings during that time, and prayed in the Hindu Temple. I have not been part of that community since age eighteen but remain formed by it, and continue to be connected to Hindu traditions, practices, and to the land of India through my beloved husband and his family.

From the ages of zero to ten, my mom was a dedicated practitioner of Buddhist meditation in the lineage of Thich Nhat Hanh, and from a young age I was taken to Buddhist mindfulness days at one of his monasteries, and attended weekly sangha meditation sits with my parents before school. When I left the Hindu community my family had been part of, and sought to reconnect with my Jewish roots, I found doing so to be challenging, with many false starts. During that time, white American Buddhist teachers such as Tara Brach and Sharon Salzberg were inspirational, and I still continue to turn to their teachings for the simplicity and clarity that they provide when I am feeling lost and stuck. At age nineteen, I sat a 6-day meditation retreat at Thich Nhat Hanh’s Blue Cliff Monastery, and at age twentynine I sat a 10-day Vipassana retreat in the Goenka lineage.

Poetry by Islamic Sufi poets Rumi and Hafez have been deeply influential in my ongoing spiritual practice. Studying in a Qur’an class while at Vanderbilt, I had the opportunity to dive deep into one of the texts by Ibn Arabi, “Seal of the Saints,” and felt profound resonance with this mystical approach. I have written academically on the topic of historical spiritual sharings between Jewish mystics and Sufi mystics, and I continue to feel inspired by opportunities in my life for rich conversations between these traditions.

My three-year Master of Divinity degree was a deep immersion in Christian traditions. I was the only student in my class that had not either been raised in a Christian tradition or currently identified as a Christian. Furthermore, living in the Bible Belt of the South offered an illuminating opportunity to learn about the many Christianities (plural) that exist. Training and working as a Hospice and Psychiatric Hospital Chaplain, the vast majority of my patients were from Christian backgrounds, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to care for people in difficult moments, where the particularities of our practices fall away, and what remains is the presence in the room. Finally, I have been spiritually formed by leaders from Christian backgrounds, such as Krista Tippett and her remarkable podcast On Being, as well as many incredible professors and mentors at Vanderbilt Divinity School.

I am part of an ongoing group of friends, self-identified as Jewitches, and we seek to merge our Jewish lineage with our interest in earth-based practices, magic, herbalism, and lost traditions of femme and non-binary people that have often been discarded and disparaged and are in need of reclaiming.