The first cohort of Darchei HaLev will take place over two years from 2026 to 2028 (5787 to 5789 in the Jewish calendar). Each year classes and experiences will run from after the High Holy Days (approx Oct/Nov) until the harvest festival of Shavuot (around May/June) with a break in the summer and for other holidays. 

Our weekly meetings will take place for two hours on Thursday evenings from 7:00-9:00pm, unless indicated due to Jewish or public holidays. Sunday Immersive Workshops will take place approximately every 6-8 weeks from 6:00-8:30pm. Our calendar also includes various Chochmat holiday celebrations and community events that we encourage you to join to receive the full experience of being in this community.

Everyone is welcome to participate. You do not need to be Jewish, or read Hebrew, or have studied Judaism before. You do need to be committed, excited to learn, and ready to immerse yourself in an experience. For those seeking conversion, there will be an application and interview process both before beginning studies, and prior to the conversion, to ensure alignment and set appropriate expectations. For people with more extensive Jewish knowledge, we suggest you try our Go Deeper program.

To learn more about the history of Bar or Bat Mitzvah, visit our Adult B’Mitzvah page. 

Our Adult B’Mitzvah process may or may not involve reading from the Torah, studying a Jewish text to completion, or researching and crafting a unique ritual project for you and your community. It will always incorporate a ritual that will be the centerpiece of your milestone occasion, whether that is your own personalized Torah service, a Torah service at Chochmat, or a unique ritual that is entirely yours.

A conversion ceremony incorporates the ritual of mikveh, immersing into a pool of living waters, witnessed by a Beit Din – a Jewish Court – of three rabbis. Your mikveh ritual will be unique to you and may include additional costs for using the space, and donations to the other rabbis present. There may be other ritual specific requirements that will be discussed in your interview.

Your conversion is not dependent on what you know, it is about who you are and who you are becoming. Your involvement throughout the Darchei HaLev learning experience, your commitment to experiencing and internalizing the rituals and practices that we discover, as well as your ongoing participation in integration circles and journaling, will all indicate to your rabbinic team that you are ready for conversion. Your capstone study or ritual project will also be a component of preparing for conversion. You are not being tested to pass or fail. You are already enough. Your conversion requirements are part of the pathway and process that will lead you to feeling empowered and inspired as you move into living a rich, meaningful Jewish life.

Our curriculum will include learning the sounds and meanings of many Hebrew words and phrases. All texts will be translated into English, and all songs, prayers, and chants will be transliterated. We will explore the shapes and mystical meanings of the Hebrew alphabet, and the ways that words are similar to one another. However, we will not be spending any direct time on learning to decode Hebrew words with vowels and consonants. For those choosing to read Torah for their B’Mitzvah, there will be an optional Hebrew reading course and Hebrew tutoring available for an additional cost. 

This learning is designed to be a community experience. For this initial cohort, there will be no hybrid or online experience available, though we may consider it in the future. Some frontal learning components may be recorded for those who miss a session due to illness or the occasional conflict. We will not be able to record integration sessions, workshops, or other experiential elements of the learning experience.

The foundational book of Jewish mysticism, Sefer Yetzirah, opens with the words, “32 wondrous paths of wisdom” with which the Divine designed and formed the Universe. The Kabbalist Rabbi Moshe Cordovero (known as RaMaK) comments that the number 32 in Hebrew is equivalent numerically to the word LeV – heart. By immersing and internalizing the 32 paths of wisdom, RaMak invites one to become Lev, a heart-centered being.