The Morei Derekh Jewish Spiritual Direction Training Program deepens the inner life and wisdom of its participants as it prepares them to foster the wisdom and spiritual life of other Jewish spiritual seekers – both affiliated and unaffiliated – helping the seeker to discover what gives meaning to their life, relationships, work in the world (paid or volunteer), and their Jewishness and, for many, their relationship with God. Many Jews are unaware of the deep spiritual wisdom in Judaism and spiritual direction can lead to the discovery of the Judaism’s spirituality that many are seeking, often outside of Judaism.

Morei Derekh’s rigorous 30-month, distance learning and residency-based program, includes study, integration, and embodiment of a wide range of Jewish sacred texts, including Torah, Psalms, and other parts of the Tanakh, Rabbinic Literature, Medieval commentators and philosophers, Kabbalistic and especially Hasidic texts as well as Mussar, the siddur, and contemporary interpretations of these traditional texts as well as traditional and contemporary spiritual practices including studying and using the siddur. Using various learning modalities including hevruta (one-on-one spiritual companionship and study), va’ad (small group), webinars, reading, reflective writing assignments, and one-on-one mentoring with a co-director, participants develop the skills and wisdom to become a sacred companion to others.

In Morei Derekh, we explore the different theologies within Judaism from a wide range of traditional sources (Biblical, Rabbinic, Kabbalistic and Hasidic) as well as contemporary works (including Neo-Hasidic, and Process theology). In hevruta, our participants explore the spiritual practice of Mussar (19th century Jewish soul/ethical work that has made an exciting resurgence in the past 15 years) through the study and active cultivation of 13 middot (soul traits) we believe to be important to spiritual directors. In their va’ad, students engage in a year-long exploration of the siddur, and engage in both traditional and contemporary prayer practices, which are important for their own experience and to support those whom they will companion as a spiritual guide.

The primary goal of our training program – and woven into everything we do – is to make Jewish wisdom applicable to the daily lives of our participants and the people they guide as Jewish spiritual directors. Our curriculum mines the depths of what Judaism’s wisdom offers, presents it, and then lets the students explore, engage, and react to it, to find their unique way to integrate what speaks to them into their daily lives.

While in Morei Derekh students explore a variety of spiritual practices such as meditation, Mussar, and various forms of contemplative prayer and study a wide range of texts, so they can authentically and effectively be a morei derekh – a guide – to the diversity of Jewish expression in background, theology, practice or lived experience. These practices are intended for their personal growth and integration, as they feel called to take them into their lives.

We also focus on processing the material with the participants so they can integrate and bring more fully into their lives what they are learning and experiencing. As a large group we process at residencies and in our monthly webinars. In group spiritual direction at residencies and in their monthly va’ad calls, there is time for small group process. Regular mentoring sessions with a co-director and their weekly hevruta provides for the deeper one-on-one reflection. And there is time for individual processing with regular process sheets and reflective writing assignments.

Our graduates and current students include rabbis, cantors, therapists, doctors, nurses, meditation teachers, educators, chaplains, healing professionals, accountants, lawyers, writers, university lecturers, software engineers, coaches, and lay leaders from all Jewish denominations and all over North America. This diversity of background and experience adds to the richness of the exploration of our Jewish tradition together. It isn’t always easy, but we are committed to having this range of orientations and religious observance as it helps us to all grow and understand the diversity and complexity that is the lived experience of contemporary Judaism.

Our real aim is to address the needs of the broader Jewish community and individual Jews who are seeking more meaning in their life, a deeper connection to their Judaism, and/or a deeper spiritual life and connection with God. One of the benefits of reaching out to and accepting a students of a broad spectrum of Jewish background, tradition and practice is that our impact is much wider than the small number of participants in our program at any one time. Our participants work with affiliated and unaffiliated Jews, with individuals and in groups, with adults and with children, in institutions and outside of institutions – with anyone who has a desire to explore their life’s journey and wants to grow spiritually, sometimes past limiting concepts of God and Judaism, to nurture and deepen their connection to self, community, the world and God.

In order to skillfully help others with their spiritual development and to explore and mine the wisdom of Judaism our participants must first work on their own development, their own tikkun hanefesh. Their tikkun hanefesh is then the precursor to their doing tikkun olam in the Jewish community and in the greater world.

The impact the Morei Derekh program has on the lives of the greater Jewish community are best articulated by some of the individuals who have been in spiritual direction with our graduates:

“I cannot tell you the incredible value it has added to my life. At the start, I wasn’t sure what Jewish spiritual direction was. I knew, though, what I wanted it to be: To put my daily life in a spiritual perspective. To see where God was in my life. To interpret what was happening to me in terms of my place in the universe. More than a year later… spiritual direction has fulfilled my vision. From the big things in my life — my Dad’s death from Alzheimer’s disease — to the little tiny things — literally: a broken pinky toe…. The third Sunday of the month, I walk out of my synagogue a bigger, better, more loving mom, wife, daughter, and person.”

 

“Jewish spiritual direction has brought me right to the heart of the kavannah of living my life through a Jewish lens. In the five years I have been companioned on my spiritual journey, I have gone deeply inward to open to my relationship to God. I have been able to name and embrace a deep faith in God that I had not known before within a Jewish context.”

 

“Jewish spiritual direction is important for the Jewish community because it gives a new way of wrestling with God. So much of our traditional approach is through the intellect, studying theology or texts. While that approach is still important, and a resource in Jewish spiritual direction; it is not the only tool. Jewish spiritual direction allows Jews to do and then learn — to find a path to God and then understand it.”

 

“Spiritual direction has flowed outward and has transformed every part of my Jewish life from my spiritual life of God’s ever deepening presence, to my teaching of Jewish spirituality in the Jewish community, and to my embracing of mitzvot and middot.”

The Morei Derekh program provides remarkably transformative learning with far-reaching ramifications for the Jewish community and the spiritual renewal of liberal Judaism. We see this particularly reflected in the testimony of our rabbinic alumni:

“Before starting the program, I had difficulty integrating all the disparate parts of my life – my Rabbinic studies, my prayer and spiritual life, my private life, my relationships with family and friends, and my desire to perform tikkun olam. What the Morei Derekh program has enabled me to do is to recognize that it is my relationship with God that is the connecting force, the kesher, that gives deeper meaning and value to each of these areas and to my life on a daily basis. The program has been able to accomplish this for me by combining ongoing text, prayer, and Mussar study, and weekly and monthly experiential opportunities, culminating, twice a year, in what have been, transforming four-day residencies.”

 

“The Morei Derekh program has given me language to talk about God with my congregants and to express my own views and longings. It opened up new ways of looking at and for spirituality that have transformed my practice of Judaism and my life as a spiritual being. The exposure to the Jewish ethical teachings of Mussar has provided me with a daily practice to help me seek and find God in my everyday life. I have a new appreciation for silence, for contemplation and for my ability to learn from other faiths.”

 

“Morei Derekh has brought me to a new place in my spiritual life; a quiet resting place in which I now can listen anew to the heart voices of my congregation and hear, with my inner ear, the spiritual voices of our tradition. I see Torah though a different lens; I feel my congregants’ joys, pains, achievements, and disappointments as soul journeys and feel personally and professionally humbled to companion them as we all grow towards God.”

 

“Standing as we do at a point in history that poses unique challenges to the ability of Jewish teachers to speak to the hearts and souls of our people, I am convinced that Spiritual Direction, in general, and the Morei Derekh program, in particular, has the potential to contribute in essential ways to the revitalization of Jewish life in the 21st century…. I want to let you know how central the learning and the disciplines of this program have become to my rabbinate. I have incorporated the language and sensitivities of Jewish Spiritual Direction into every facet of my professional work, to my teaching and preaching and counseling and guiding, and to much of my personal spiritual work as well. I am quite convinced that the exceptional teachers and guides who direct the Morei Derekh program and the ever growing numbers of their students will contribute in essential ways to the spiritual revitalization of Judaism that so many seek.”

Our non-rabbinic alumni also confirm the impact of Morei Derekh in their lives:

“How wonderful to experience a text-based, intellectually strong program that affirms a heart-centered and deeply felt faith experience, and to have this within a multi-denominational Jewish context. We learned how to bring text alive and teachings about God into relationship with ourselves and with each other.”

 

“The Morei Derekh program has inspired me to continue to grow in learning, in teaching and in accompanying others on their spiritual journeys; it has enhanced and enriched and deepened my faith in God and my life as a Jew.”

 

“This program has shown me how to fulfill my life’s purpose: to begin the journey down the path, or, up the ladder, to learning the beautiful, spiritual beauty of Judaism. My love and dedication to Judaism has deepened, in fact awakened. The desire to learn has found its direction. In fact, what and how to learn has shown itself as enlightenment, taking me by the hand from the darkness of questioning and searching to that which was elusive to me, the “sunlight of the Spirit”, as I’ve read in another text.”

 

“The Morei Derekh program provided an opportunity for me personally to discover my fears stemming from my father’s experiences as a pogrom survivor. Through the program I discovered the various faces of resistance to Judaism and spirituality. These are phenomenon that I encounter in directees that I work with and those in the community when they hear that I am offering Jewish spiritual direction. It is through our own inner lives that we develop empathy and understanding. Through the program, my spirituality and character has been refined and the Torah has become my foundation for wisdom of the heart. It is indeed a blessing to be able to share my skills and intuitive listening with others both formally and informally.”

Interested in getting on our waiting list for applications and information about our next Morei Derekh cohort? Please contact us.