“Go Deeper” Cohort Journey
A Year of Spiritual Growth
This Hebrew year 5786 (2025-2026), we invite you on a collective journey of Jewish learning and practice through our “Go Deeper” Cohort — four modules that can be taken individually or as a year-long experience. Each 7-week module blends immersive study, embodied practice, ritual, meditation, and partner dialogue, all facilitated by some of the wisest teachers in the Bay and guest faculty from across the country. Whether you’re new to our community or a long-time participant, this series will enliven and nurture your own Jewish path. This series will also serve as the preamble to our new Adult B’nei Mitzvah and Conversion Programs.
The year-long journey focuses on the pillars that shape our community’s spiritual life: Shabbat & Sacred Time; God, Divinity & Prayer; Community as Spiritual Practice; and Teshuva. We’ll uncover the theological roots and deepen our lived experience of these foundational elements of our practice. Our core faculty, guest teachers, and Chochmat’s leadership are joyfully partnering to bring this dream series into being. Together, we will step more fully into the beauty, meaning, and mystery of Jewish life as we grow chochmat halev (wisdom of the heart) within ourselves and in relationship with each other.
Program Structure
- Format: 6 classes + 1 special gathering, such as a shabbat gathering, mini retreat, or holiday observance.
- Faculty: Each module is led by a core teacher, with 2 guest teachers.
Attendance: All sessions will take place in person. Recordings will be available for anyone who misses a class.
- Content: Classes are open and welcoming, blending scholarship and spiritual depth for both new and experienced learners.
- When: Tuesday evenings
Module Schedule & Faculty
Autumn: Shabbat & Sacred Time
Core Faculty: Dr. Deena Aranoff
Deena Aranoff is Faculty Director of the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. She teaches rabbinic literature, medieval patterns of Jewish thought, and the broader question of continuity and change in Jewish history. Her recent publications engage with the subject of childcare, maternity and the making of Jewish culture.
The 6 sessions for the first module will meet in the Chochmat HaLev Sanctuary from 6:30-8:15pm on Tuesdays November 4, November 11, December 2, December 9, January 6, January 13, plus a special Shabbat gathering Saturday, January 17, 11am-2pm.
Winter: Community as Spiritual Practice
Core Faculty: Dr. Sam Shonkoff
Sam Shonkoff is the Taube Family Associate Professor of Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union. His scholarship focuses on themes of embodiment, relationality, revelation, and interpretation in Jewish spirituality, especially in German-Jewish, Hasidic, and neo-Hasidic contexts. His current book project is tentatively entitled Embodied Theology: Reading Buber Reading Hasidism, and he is co-editor with Ariel Mayse of Hasidism: Writings on Devotion, Community, and Life in the Modern World. Sam’s recent articles and book chapters include “Child Mind in Hasidic Spirituality,” “‘We Shall Do and We Shall Understand’: Embodied Theology in Modern Judaism,” “Gender in Martin Buber’s Hasidic Tales,” and “Hasidism through the Prism of Psychedelics, Psychedelics through the Prism of Hasidism: A Case Study” (forthcoming 2026).
This class will meet on Tuesdays from 6:45-8:30pm on Jan 27, Feb 10, Feb 17, Feb 24, March 3, and March 17. The special gathering will be on Saturday, Feb 7 from 5-7 to sing niggunim, meditate, and hear some Torah through sunset and into the darkness, followed by Havdalah.
Spring: Divinity & Prayer
Core Faculty: Rabbi Dorothy Richman
Dorothy Richman serves as the rabbi of Makor Or: Jewish Meditation Center and is a founding faculty member of the Romemu Yeshiva. Her work engages the spiritual practices of Torah study, prayer, meditation, music, and justice. She has enjoyed a close relationship with Chochmat HaLev over many years, providing deep insights into traditional Jewish practices.
Tuesdays: April 14 – June 9
Summer: Contemplation & Teshuva
Core Faculty: Rabbi Diane Elliot
Rabbi Diane Elliot is a spiritual leader and somatic therapist who inspires her students to embody and deepen their Jewish spiritual lives through awareness and movement practices, chant and expressive arts, and nuanced interpretations of Jewish sacred text. She leads retreats, teaches nationally, and works with individuals in spiritual direction.
Classes will begin in Elul and end in Sukkot.
Guest Faculty
Rabbi Zvika Krieger is the Spiritual Leader of Chochmat HaLev, a progressive spiritual community in Berkeley, CA for embodied prayer, heart-centered connections, and mystical experiences. He is a subversive ritualist and radical traditionalist who is passionate about harnessing ancient wisdom to create modern meaning, fostering mindfulness and authentic connection amidst digital distraction, and bridging the sacred and profane. He has served in board and leadership positions for Sukkat Shalom/Milk+Honey camp at Burning Man, Jewish Studio Project, DC Minyan, Temple of the Stranger, and other organizations dedicated to nourishing the mind, body, and soul.
Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie is a social activist and storyteller, writer and community leader, and the Co-Founding Spiritual Leader of the Lab/Shul community in NYC and the creator of the ritual theater company Storahtelling, Inc. Israeli born, he’s been living in New York since 1998. He received his rabbinical ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 2016, the 39th generation of rabbis in his family — the first one to be openly queer. Rabbi Amichai is the star of Sabbath Queen, Sandi DuBowski’s award-winning documentary film, 21 years in the making, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2024. Watch there trailer here >
Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, is an author, teacher, midrashist, mystic, poet, essayist, and priestess. She is committed to an earth-based and wildly mythic view of the world in which nature, ritual, and story connect us to the body of the cosmos and to ourselves. She has been called “a Jewish bard.”
Rabbi David Kasher is the Director of Hadar West Coast. He grew up bouncing back and forth between the Bay Area and Brooklyn, hippies and Hassidim – and has been trying to synthesize these two worlds ever since. He received rabbinic ordination at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and a doctorate in Legal Studies from Berkeley Law. He has served as Senior Jewish Educator at Berkeley Hillel, Director of Education at Kevah, and Associate Rabbi at IKAR. He is the author of ParshaNut: 54 Journeys into the World of Torah Commentary.
Rav Jericho Vincent is the founding rabbi of Temple of the Stranger, a growing Ivri community in Brooklyn. Jericho teaches the Ivri Way. Rooted in the love of Goddess and the wisdom of our ancestor Miriam, the Ivri Way is a mystical, embodied source of ancient Jewish wisdom and practice for healing, connection, justice, and joy. Raised in a rabbinic ultra-Orthodox family, Rav Jericho is a first-generation college graduate. They hold a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard University, where they were a Pforzheimer Fellow and received rabbinic ordination from the Aleph Ordination Program in the lineage of Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.
Daniel Matt is a scholar and teacher of Kabbalah. In 2016, he completed an 18-year project of translating the Zohar, the masterpiece of Kabbalah. His nine-volume annotated work — The Zohar: Pritzker Edition (published by Stanford University Press) — has been hailed as “a monumental contribution to the history of Jewish thought.” Daniel received his Ph.D. from Brandeis University and for twenty years served as professor at the Center for Jewish Studies, within the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He has also taught at Stanford and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Ariel Evan Mayse joined the faculty of Stanford University in 2017 as an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies, after previously serving as the Director of Jewish Studies and Visiting Assistant Professor of Modern Jewish Thought at Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts, and a research fellow at the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Michigan. Mayse holds a Ph.D. in Jewish Studies from Harvard University and rabbinic ordination from Beit Midrash Har’el in Israel. Mayse’s research and teaching interests include: Hasidism, Kabbalah, and Jewish mysticism; comparative religious ethics and theology; ecology and the environmental humanities; medieval Jewish thought; and the philosophy of Jewish law.
Tuition
Per Module (sliding scale):
- Members: $220 / $250 / $280
- Non-Members: $260 / $290 / $320
No one turned away for lack of funds, please contact Sam to make arrangements at sam@chochmat.org.
