Everyday Rituals: Jewish Life as the Framework for Playwriting
2025-11-12 12:00 - 13:30, 2025-11-19 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York) | 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.

Before I Go: Writing the Ethical Will
2025-11-13 13:00 - 14:30 | Zoom
Thursday, November 13, 2025
1-2:30 p.m. EST
$18

Living wills address the physical body. Financial wills protect property. But an ethical will is a gift of the heart and spirit—a way to pass along the stories, values, and wisdom that have shaped your life.
In this workshop with memoirist Ellen Blum Barish, you’ll be invited to slow down, reflect, and give voice to the memories and teachings that matter most to you. Together, we’ll explore how writing can help you express what sustains your hope, the values that guide you, and the ways you’ve experienced the presence of God or the sacred. Through thoughtful prompts, journaling time, and opportunities for gentle sharing, you’ll begin shaping words that carry your love, faith, and spirit forward.
You’ll leave not only with the beginnings of an ethical will, but also with a renewed sense of connection to your own life story—and with tools to continue this meaningful work at home. This is not about being a “writer,” but about finding your voice and discovering how your words can become a legacy for the people you love and for generations yet to come. No prior writing experience is needed—just your willingness to show up with an open heart.
This event will be recorded and sent to participants. We encourage live attendance for you to get the most out of the experience.

Ellen Blum Barish is the author of the spiritual memoir Seven Springs (Shanti Arts, 2021), the essay collection Views from the Home Office Window (Adams Street Publishing, 2007), and a contributor to Chicago Storytellers From Stage to Page (Chicago Story Press, 2020). You can find her personal essays in Tablet, Lilith, Brevity’s Blog, Full Grown People, Literary Mama, and The Chicago Tribune and hear them on Chicago Public Radio. She founded the literary publication Thread, which earned four notables in Best American Essays. Ellen has taught writing at Northwestern University, Chicago-area synagogues, and writer’s studios, including Story Studio Chicago and Lighthouse Lit Fest. She works privately with writers on essay collections and memoir.

Holding Each Other
2025-11-17 12:00 - 12:15, 2025-11-24 12:00 - 12:15, 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 | Zoom
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.

Writing in Conversation with Kohelet
2025-11-18 12:00 - 13:30
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.

Balancing Gratitude and Grief: A Pre-Thanksgiving Writing Ritual
2025-11-25 12:00 - 13:30 | Zoom
Tuesday, November 25, 2024
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.

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.

The Hidden Light of Hanukkah: A Journey in Poetry & Presence
2025-12-02 13:00 - 14:30, 2025-12-09 13:00 - 14:30, 2025-12-16 13:00 - 14:30 | Zoom
Tuesdays, December 2, 9 & 16, 2025
1-2:30 p.m.
$154

Welcome the warmth and light of Hanukkah with a unique program that weaves together mindfulness, poetry, and generative writing. Join instructors Elana Bell and Rabbi Dan Liben for a three-part series, presented in collaboration with the Institute of Jewish Spirituality.

The Hidden Light of Hanukkah: A Journey in Poetry & Presence is designed to be a balm for your spirit and an invitation to deepen your connection to the holiday. Through reflective meditation, soulful poetry, and writing practice, you’ll be guided to:

✨ Slow down and create sacred space in the midst of holiday busyness
✨ Listen inwardly for the sparks of hidden light that live within you
✨ Explore ancient and contemporary poetry as inspiration for your own creative voice
✨ Discover new ways to experience the miracle of resilience, hope, and gratitude in our broken world

Together, we’ll celebrate Hanukkah’s spiritual essence—not only remembering the miracles of the past, but also uncovering the light we carry forward today. Come prepared to write, reflect, and rekindle your own flame of joy and renewal.

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

Elana Bell is a poet, sound practitioner and creative guide. She facilitates artistic rituals and processes that support individuals and groups in accessing their authentic voice and alchemizing raw experience and emotion into artistic expression. Elana is the author of Mother Country (BOA Editions 2020), poems about fertility, motherhood, and mental illness. Elana’s debut collection of poetry, Eyes, Stones (LSU Press 2012), was selected by Fanny Howe as the winner of the 2011 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets and brings her complex heritage as the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors to consider the difficult question of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In addition to leading her own embodied Creative Fire workshops, Elana teaches poetry to actors at the Juilliard School and sings with the Resistance Revival Chorus, a group of women activists and musicians committed to bringing joy and song to the resistance movement. She is also the founder of the Mother Artist Salon, a community dedicated to supporting mothers in their artistic practice. www.elanabell.com

Rabbi Dan Liben was ordained by JTS and is the Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Israel of Natick, MA. Dan began practicing Mindfulness Meditation at Elat Hayyim, where his teachers included Rabbis Sheila Weinberg and Jeff Roth, Sylvia Boorstein and Norman Fisher. That led him to the Institute for Jewish Spirituality (IJS), where he completed the Rabbinic Leadership Program (R4) and the Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training program (Cohorts1 and 2). He taught Mindfulness Meditation for IJS Rabbinic Cohort 7, and served on IJS’s Board for six years. In 2017, Rabbi Liben completed Hebrew Union College’s Bekhol Levavkha, a two-year training program in Spiritual Direction. He is currently on the staff of Spiritual Directors offering Spiritual Direction to Rabbinical students at Hebrew College, Hebrew Union College, and the Jewish Theological Seminary.

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.

Embodying the Light: A Hanukkah Mind‑Body‑Spirit Practice
2025-12-10 20:00 - 21:00 | Zoom
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 Embodying the Light — 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.

The 10 Rules of Writing With Etgar Keret
2026-01-11 13:00 - 14:30 | Zoom
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.

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.
