Balancing Gratitude and Grief: A Pre-Thanksgiving Writing Ritual
2025-11-25 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York) | Zoom
Tuesday, November 25, 2025
12-1:30 p.m. EST

As Thanksgiving approaches, many of us hold both gratitude and grief—love for what we have and longing for what’s been lost. In this special session, we’ll explore how Jewish tradition honors both emotions and how we can give voice to them through poetry, prayer, and ritual.

Join Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer, Ritualwell’s Director of Virtual Content and Programs, for a reflective and creative gathering that invites you to bring your full heart to the holiday. You’ll be guided to create your own words and rituals that bring sacred awareness to your Thanksgiving table—and to everyday moments of gratitude and remembrance.

This session will be recorded and sent to participants. We encourage live attendance for you to get the most out of the experience.

Gabrielle Ariella Kaplan-Mayer is Ritualwell’s Director of Virtual Content and Programs. She is a spiritual director, author and educator whose work focuses on spirituality, creativity and disability. Her personal essays have been featured in Tablet, Shondaland, NBCThink, Wisdom Daily, WHYY and many other publications and she has published several nonfiction books as well as plays for children. Gabrielle is currently working on a memoir about the power of intuition and ongoing conversations with her ancestors. She writes a Substack newsletter called “Journey With The Seasons,” a weekly practice of meditative reading with creative self-expression prompts. Gabrielle holds a BFA in theater and creative writing from Emerson College and an MA in Jewish Studies from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.

Holding Each Other
2025-12-01 12:00 - 12:15, 2025-12-08 12:00 - 12:15, 2025-12-15 12:00 - 12:15, 2025-12-22 12:00 - 12:15
Every Monday, 12-12:15 p.m. EDT

Now more than ever, we need each other.

Every Monday, join “Holding Each Other,” a 15-minute online minyan, facilitated by a leading Ritualwell contributor. Together, we’ll recite Mourners’ Kaddish and Mi Shebeirach, the prayer for healing. To foster our spiritual resilience, we’ll engage with a brief creative meditation.

Weekly, gather your strength and provide support to others.

Tree of Life: A Hanukkah Mind‑Body‑Spirit Practice
2025-12-10 20:00 - 21:00
Wednesday, December 10, 2025
8:00-9:00 p.m. EST
$18

This Hanukkah, join us for a unique exploration of ritual, awareness, movement and light. Rabbi Tsurah August, a teacher rooted in somatic practice, mindfulness and Jewish mystical tradition, invites us into the Tree of Life — a session to awaken our bodies, our hearts and our spiritual vision. In this gathering we will:

Set a mindful tone for Hanukkah, grounding our awareness, centering in presence.
Use gentle movement, breath and guided reflection to awaken our capacity to sense light within and around us.
Explore the theme of “light in darkness” and the ways our bodies carry, reflect and share that light.
Offer prompts and moments for creative embodiment—through movement, drawing, journaling or simply listening and witnessing.

Whether you’re familiar with mindfulness or new to embodied ritual, this practice is open and inclusive. Come as you are—with openness, curiosity, and your own unique presence. Bring a journal or sketch pad if you wish, wear comfortable clothing, and prepare to move, breathe, reflect and kindle your inner light.

We look forward to gathering with you, to kindle together—and to carry that light into our lives, our relationships, our world.

This session will be recorded and sent to participants. We encourage live attendance for you to get the most out of the experience.

Before becoming a rabbi and chaplain, Tsurah was a professional dancer, choreographer and movement educator for people with a broad range of movement and cognitive abilities. Dance is still her beloved form of prayer.

Magnify the Light: Hanukkah 5786/2025
2025-12-17 13:00 - 14:00
Wednesday, December 17, 2025
1-2 p.m. EST
$18

Hanukkah calls us to notice the light — even when the world feels dim.
This year, Ritualwell invites you to Magnify the Light, a special Hanukkah event and eight-night practice of reflection, creativity, and renewal.
In a time of worldwide darkness — both literal and metaphorical — we gather to recognize, amplify, and tend to the many lights that still shine. History teaches that the way forward in dark times is to follow the lights of hope, connection, compassion, and justice, even when it feels difficult. A single spark can grow into a flame, and a flame into a fire. But first, we begin with a spark.
Guided by mindfulness teacher Rabbi Daniel Raphael Silverstein, we’ll gather on December 17 to meditate, reflect, and learn together, opening space to nurture awareness and deepen our presence through the light of Hanukkah.
This experience comes with a new creative booklet for Hanukkah. For eight nights, as you kindle your hanukkiah and set aside a pause in your day, we invite you to open the booklet — a collection of readings from Ritualwell writers, prompts, and creative invitations designed to awaken your awareness of light in its many forms.
Each night, you can:

Pause in ritual to light the candles and name a light of justice in our world.

Reflect on a short reading that invites us to see the lights among us.

Engage with a creative prompt that invites your expression.

Renew your personal spirit and our shared communal vision.

Bring your candles, your curiosity, your voice, and your yearning. Let’s kindle together — and let the light we do see grow warm and wide. Your printable Magnify the Light PDF booklet will be sent to you electronically before Hanukkah begins.
This session will be recorded and sent to participants. We encourage live attendance for you to get the most out of the experience.

Daniel Raphael Silverstein is a rabbi, educator, meditation teacher and MC/poet. He lives in Israel with his family, where he directs Applied Jewish Spirituality, an online portal which makes the transformative spiritual wisdom of our tradition accessible to all who seek it. Daniel is an accredited teacher of Jewish Mindfulness Meditation and regularly teaches classes and retreats. He was born and raised in London and received a BA from the University of Cambridge and an MA from Warwick University. After receiving semikha from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School, he served as Director of Jewish Life and Learning for Hillel of Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. Daniel has performed and facilitated all over the world as a spoken word artist, MC, and creative educator, and the Jewish Week selected him as one of their “36 Under 36” young innovators reshaping the Jewish community. Daniel is a cofounder of Lines of Faith, a Muslim-Jewish hip hop and poetry collective that uses performances and workshops to challenge prejudice and build meaningful bonds between communities.

The 10 Rules of Writing With Etgar Keret
2026-01-11 13:00 - 14:30
Sunday, January 11, 2026
1:00 -2:30 p.m. EST
$54

Join us for an exclusive gathering with acclaimed Israeli writer Etgar Keret, beloved for his wildly imaginative short stories, wit, and deep humanity. In this special session for the Ritualwell community, Keret will share his “10 Rules for Writers”—hard-earned wisdom that’s as funny and surprising as his fiction.

Drawing on decades of literary success, Keret will explore how to nurture creativity, embrace imperfection, and find your truest voice on the page. Whether you’re an experienced author, a devoted reader, or just beginning to write, this event will spark new ways of thinking about storytelling and the art of connection through words.

Come ready to be inspired, laugh, and see writing—and the Jewish literary imagination—in a whole new light.

This session will be recorded and sent to participants. We encourage live attendance for you to get the most out of the experience.

Jewish Writers’ Circles Members: Please enter your membership code on the second page.

Etgar Keret is a celebrated Israeli writer known for his inventive short stories, graphic novels, and screenwriting for film and television. His work—marked by its surreal humor and emotional depth—has captivated global audiences and been translated into dozens of languages. Keret is the author of acclaimed collections including Missing Kissinger, Suddenly a Knock on the Door, and Fly Already, which won the prestigious Sapir Prize. His storytelling has also found new life on screen: Jellyfish, which he co-directed with his wife Shira Geffen, earned the Camera d’Or at Cannes in 2007. Additionally, Keret is a recipient of France’s Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the Charles Bronfman Prize, recognizing his humanitarian vision and international cultural impact. He currently serves as the MFA Director for JTS’s new MFA in creative writing.
