Institute for Jewish Spirituality

The Institute for Jewish Spirituality (IJS) seeks to educate, sustain and support professional and lay Jewish spiritual leaders across denominations to help them bring about change in the organizations and communities they serve. Through a series of retreats over 18 months, filled with text study, meditation and yoga, IJS helps clergy in the process of renewal, helping them to stave o  burnout and revitalize their capacities for visionary leadership. Participating clergy return to their congregations restored, enabling them to deepen the teaching and guidance they provide to congregants, both affiliated and unengaged, who seek spiritual growth and insight. 

Clergy participants now exceed 200 and represent organizations that serve more than 300,000 individuals. Moreover, IJS is currently accepting its fifth cohort for rabbis, for which there is already a waiting list. 150 synagogue lay people have also been involved in intensive study groups and retreats. And after several years of facilitating personal contemplation and growth for clergy and educators, IJS is expanding its reach. It will create a curriculum for Jewish social justice activists that can be adapted for use with synagogue social action groups as well as teens in service learning programs. In 2009, IJS will also host a retreat for rabbinic students in an effort to reach the next generation of clergy serving the Jewish community. 

Evaluators describe Rabbi Rachel Cowan as “brilliant and a true leader.” While her organization is engaged in a long-term process of “developing spirituality, which is hard to evaluate,” there is clearly innovation in “recognizing the need for rabbis to develop spiritually and to receive ongoing professional and personal development.” Admirers are delighted that the rabbinic student retreat will begin next year and only hope that Rabbi Cowan and IJS will soon be able to o er their services to more audiences.