Ritualwell

Writing in Conversation with Kohelet
2025-11-11 12:00 - 13:30, 2025-11-18 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York)
Tuesdays, November 4, 11 & 18, 2025
12:00-1:30 p.m.
$154

The Book of Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) is a poetic, puzzling, and deeply human text—full of contradictions, timeless wisdom, and evocative imagery. In this 3-part generative writing series, you’ll be invited to slow down, listen closely, and let Kohelet’s searching questions about purpose, joy, mortality, and meaning spark your own reflections.
Each session will offer:

Guided exploration of selected passages from Kohelet that open up new ways of thinking about life’s biggest questions.
Creative prompts to help you respond in your own voice—through poetry, memoir, fiction, or spiritual writing.
A supportive space to share and connect with others who are also writing their way into deeper wisdom.

By the end of the series, you’ll leave with fresh writing, new insights into this mysterious text, and a sense of connection to an ancient tradition that still speaks to the heart. Come ready to read, reflect, and create. All levels of writing experience are warmly welcomed.

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

Amy Gottlieb is a novelist and poet. Her debut novel, The Beautiful Possible, was a finalist for the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, the Harold Ribalow Prize, and a National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction. Her poetry has appeared in On Being, Ilanot Review, Storyscape, SWWIM, Quartet Journal, Poetica, Paper Brigade, The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a fellowship from the Civita Institute and five individual awards from the Bronx Council on the Arts.

Everyday Rituals: Jewish Life as the Framework for Playwriting
2025-11-12 12:00 - 13:30, 2025-11-19 12:00 - 13:30 | Zoom
Wednesdays, Oct 29, 2025 and November 5, 12 & 19, 2025
12-1:30 p.m. EST
$180

What moments from the rituals of your life could inspire a new play? What makes a play a Jewish play and how can we weave Jewish ritual and values into what’s on the page? Where to start? How to go deeper?

By taking inspiration from both religious rituals and the commonalities of life Jewish families hold dear, award-winning playwright Jennifer Maisel will guide you through writing exercises that will uncover new facets to your characters and more complex elements of your story. You can be starting from scratch or working on an already existing piece. But come ready to stretch your imagination, explore your spirit, and discover how ritual can transform your writing. Show up with pen, paper, and the willingness to be inspired.

This Immersion is a special partnership with the Jewish Plays Project.

All sessions will be recorded and sent to participants. We encourage live attendance for you to get the most out of the experience.
Jennifer Maisel is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter whose work has been produced off-Broadway, nationally and internationally. Her plays include EIGHT NIGHTS, OUT OF ORBIT, MATCH. PROVENANCE, THERE OR HERE, YELLOWWALLPAPER 2.0 2020 and @thespeedofJake and have been workshopped and honored by the Sundance Theatre Lab, the Ojai Playwrights Conference, The Kennedy Center, the Ovation Awards, the Woodward/Newman Award, the Asolo Theatre and the PEN West Literary Awards. She also writes for film and television; the screenplay adaptation of her THE LAST SEDER is in pre-production with Rosalind Productions. PROVENANCE was the winner of the 2025 Jewish Plays Project contest.

Seeding Family-based Poems with Golems, Dybukks and Shpilkas
2025-11-13 12:00 - 13:30, 2025-11-20 12:00 - 13:30 | Zoom
Thursdays, October 30 and November 6, 13, & 20, 2025
12-1:30 p.m. ET
$180

What Inspires Your Poetry?

In Jewish tradition, stories and symbols shimmer with possibility—golems who guard and protect, dybbuks who haunt and unsettle, wise sayings passed down in mameloshen (Yiddish and other beloved tongues). These mythic images and words have traveled through generations, carrying echoes of our history, humor, and heart.

In this Immersion with poet Susan Comninos, we’ll step into this rich imaginative landscape, exploring how folklore, family stories, and cultural memory can awaken new inspiration for your writing. Susan will guide us in weaving together personal history and timeless myth, crafting poems that honor our creative inheritance while speaking in our own, present-day voices. Come to reflect, to write, and to join others in a circle of Jewish creativity—where the past and present meet on the page

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

Susan Comninos is a widely published writer and author of a recent book of poems, “Out of Nowhere” (Stephen F. Austin Univ. Press/Texas A&M, 2022). Her individual poems, often on Jewish themes, have appeared in the Harvard Review Online, Rattle, The Common, Prairie Schooner and North American Review, among others. She’s taught writing to undergraduates at Siena College, The College of St. Rose and SUNY Albany, as well as to adults in the community. She is currently at work on a second collection of poems, called “Wild Joy of Receiving” and is the poetry editor for Judith. She lives in upstate New York.

Rekindling Light and Joy Through Writing & Art
2025-12-04 13:00 - 14:30, 2025-12-11 13:00 - 14:30, 2025-12-18 13:00 - 14:30 | Zoom
Thursdays, December 4, 11 & 18, 2025
1-2:30 p.m. EST
$154

Remember: Joy is not merely incidental to your spiritual quest. It is vital. – Reb Nachman of Breslov

In times of personal and collective darkness, how do you stay inspired and revive your creative spirit?

You don’t have to do it alone.
In this workshop, poet and painter Cathleen Cohen and essayist and memoirist Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer will guide you through Jewish texts, poetry, and creative exercises. Together, you’ll explore ways to rediscover joy and rekindle your creative passion in honor of Hanukkah, so that you can step into Hanukkah and the winter season with a renewed sense of inner light.
Whether you’re just beginning your creative journey or you’ve been writing or making art for years, this workshop invites you to discover fresh techniques and pathways that will deepen your connections and nurture joy as a spiritual practice.

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

Cathleen Cohen was the 2019 Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, PA. A painter and teacher, she founded the We the Poets program at ArtWell, an arts education non-profit in Philadelphia. Her poems appear in journals such as Apiary, Baltimore Review, Cagibi, East Coast Ink, 6ix, North of Oxford, One Art, Passager, Philadelphia Stories, Rockvale Review and Rogue Agent. Camera Obscura (chapbook, Moonstone Press), appeared in 2017 and Etching the Ghost (Atmosphere Press) in 2021. She received the Interfaith Relations Award from the Montgomery County PA Human Rights Commission and the Public Service Award from National Association of Poetry Therapy. Her paintings are on view at Cerulean Arts Gallery (ceruleanarts.com).

Gabrielle Ariella Kaplan-Mayer is Ritualwell’s Director of Virtual Content and Programs. She is an 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.

Soulwork: Exploring Our Depths
2026-02-04 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-02-11 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-02-18 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-02-25 12:00 - 13:30 | Zoom
Wednesday, February 4, 11, 18 & 25, 2026
12-1:30 p.m. EST
$180

“From the depths I call to you!” – Psalm 130

When was the last time you truly checked in with yourself? In the midst of life’s busyness and the overwhelm of living in our current reality, it’s easy to forget our own inner world. In this four-week journey, you’ll explore four soulwork practices rooted in a Gestalt approach: dreamwork, inner child work, nature soulwork, and Soul Collage©.

Each week, you’ll dive into one modality, uncovering insights about yourself and sharing them in soulwork hevruta dyads and group conversation. We’ll begin each session with a short Jewish-spiritual text to frame our inquiry and set the tone for reflection. Step into this time for yourself—listen, explore, and respond to the call of your own depths.

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

Rabbi Dr. Haviva Ner-David is the rabbinic founder of Shmaya: A Mikveh for Mind, Body, and Soul, the only mikveh in Israel open to all to immerse as they choose. Ordained as both a rabbi and an interfaith minister, certified as a spiritual companion (with a specialty in dream work), and with a doctorate on mikveh from Bar Ilan University, she offers mikveh guidance and spiritual companioning for individuals and couples, as well as mikveh workshops and classes for groups. Rabbi Haviva is the author of three spiritual journey memoirs and a novel. Her most recent memoir, Dreaming Against the Current: A Rabbi’s Soul Journey, is about her journey into interspirituality and dreamwork. Her two previous spiritual journey memoirs are titled: Chanah’s Voice: A Rabbi Wrestles with Gender, Commandment, and the Women’s Rituals of Baking, Bathing, and Brightening, and Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Towards Traditional Rabbinic Ordination, a runner up for the National Jewish Book Council Awards. Hope Valley, her debut novel, is about the friendship between a Palestinian and a Jewish woman in Galilee, where Haviva lives. She is also the mother of seven and lives with FSHD, a form of muscular dystrophy, which has been one of her greatest teachers.

Tools for Creating our Own Jewish Meditations
2026-02-05 13:00 - 14:30, 2026-02-12 13:00 - 14:30, 2026-02-19 13:00 - 14:30, 2026-02-26 13:00 - 14:30 | Zoom
February 5, 12, 19 and 26, 2026
1-2:30 p.m. EST
$180

What is Jewish Meditation—and how can you bring it into your daily life in a way that feels authentic and nourishing?

In this four-part course, you’ll be invited to slow down, listen inward, and explore the wisdom of Jewish meditative tradition. Together we’ll study foundational texts, stories, and teachings from our ancestors and spiritual teachers who have turned to stillness, breath, and awareness as pathways to connection with the Divine.

Each session will include guided meditation and gentle experiential practices. You’ll have the opportunity to reflect, write, and share as you begin to create your own personal intentions or meditations—ones that meet you where you are and speak to your unique spiritual needs.

We’ll explore a range of Jewish meditative approaches that can help transform ordinary moments into sacred ones. Through mindful eating, breathing, visualization, and prayer, you’ll develop tools to infuse everyday life with deeper presence, gratitude, and meaning.

By the end of the course, you’ll leave with both inspiration from Jewish sources and practical, personal meditative practices to carry forward in your own way.

All sessions 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.

Lifting the Threads: Writing Past and Present
2026-02-17 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-02-24 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-03-03 12:00 - 13:30 | Zoom
Tuesday, Feb 17 & 24 and March 3, 2026
12-1:30 p.m.
$154

As storytellers, how do we balance our present lived experience with the past that shapes it? In Jewish tradition, memory and narrative carry profound weight—from the retelling of ancestral journeys in the Torah to the intimate stories passed through our families. In this 3-week workshop, we’ll explore strategies for seamlessly integrating backstory, experimenting with time shifts to deepen meaning rather than interrupt narrative flow. Through readings, discussion, and writing prompts, we will move fluidly between temporal layers—the “forward momentum” of the lived story and the “backwards glance” demanded by memory.

By the end of the workshop, you will produce a short memoir piece that demonstrates fluid interplay between present and past—using backstory as a source of resonance, not digression, and honoring the threads of memory that connect us to our histories and communities.

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

Megan Vered writes about family, friendship, and the dazzle of daily life. Megan lives in Marin County, where she facilitates local, international, and Jewish-themed writing groups. Her essays and interviews have appeared in HuffPost, Kveller, The Jewish Writing Project, High Country News, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Writer’s Chronicle, among others. Megan holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and chairs the board of Heyday Books. Learn more about her work at www.meganvered.com

Sarah and Hagar: Uncovering Feminine Strength and Wisdom
2026-03-03 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-03-10 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-03-17 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-03-24 12:00 - 13:30 | Zoom
Mondays, March 3, 10, 17 and 24, 2026
12-1:30 p.m. EST
$180

The story of Sarah and Hagar is often told as a tale of rivalry and cruelty—but a closer look reveals a far richer story, hinting at a complex, powerful, and spiritually resonant relationship between two extraordinary women.

In this workshop, we’ll explore the story through text study, discussion, and writing prompts, uncovering new possibilities for understanding female relationships, motherhood, and feminine archetypes. Together, we’ll re-examine these matriarchs to discover strength, wisdom, and inspiration for our own lives.

Led by Tzivia Gover, author and professional dreamworker, this session draws on years of deep engagement with the story of Sarah, Hagar, and Abraham through poetry, translation, and spiritual inquiry. Tzivia will guide participants to uncover hidden treasures in the text—and to make new discoveries of their own.

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

Tzivia Gover is the author of ‘Dreaming on the Page: Tap into Your Midnight Mind to Supercharge Your Writing‘, and other books about dreams, writing, and everyday joy. She is the creator of ‘The Life of H: Sarah, Reimagined’ an online poetry project. The founder of 350 Dreamers, an online international community dreaming for global healing in this time of climate crisis, Tzivia is a board member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams and a past Director at the Institute for Dream Studies. Tzivia is a Certified Dreamwork Professional and a Certified Proprioceptive Writing Instructor. She has her MFA in writing from Columbia University, and has taught in college and community settings domestically and abroad. Learn more at www.thirdhousemoon.com and https://tziviagover.substack.com.
