Awakening with Rabbi Ami Silver

An overarching kavannah/intention for the Pesach seder - being free, making space for our pain, leaning into our weakness and redeeming it. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork  This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.

Pesach Seder Prep, Steps 7 and 8 Motzi-Matza: Receiving Life Through and Beyond Constraints ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork  This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.

Pesach Seder Prep #6 Rachta - Cleansing Ourselves from Limiting Beliefs We've told our story. Now we have a chance to bathe in the faith that our redemption is real. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork  This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.

Passover Seder Prep #5 Maggid - The Questions That Free Us ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork  This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.

Pesach Seder prep  Here we pick up the whole matzah for all to see and break it into two. This sets into motion the redemptive process that grows specifically from brokenness, and develops into the greater, hidden light that is nurtured through the lived experience of each and every one of us. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork  This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.

Pesach Seder Prep Karpas is the true beginning of the Seder experience, when we encounter the paradox of this night - the newness and pain, rebirth and suffering, growing and drowning. Here we begin to feel the expansive space that holds the totality of this moment, and becomes the ground from which we can hope to be redeemed. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork  This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.

The second stage of the Pesach seder offers us the opportunity to put our intentions for the night into practice. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork  This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.

Spiritual guidance and preparation for the Passover seder. Finding Seder/"order" amidst chaos, creating holiness in the here and now.

The Sages teach that the salvation of Purim has something to do with Moshe being born and dying in the month of Adar. They also teach that Purim is the day of true acceptance of Torah, when the event of Mount Sinai was ultimately fulfilled. In this very personal rendering, R' Ami explores the themes of birth and death, of traumatic separation and loss of self, and the possibility of a Torah that emerges when a self is expressed on the other side of that trauma. 

Jacob's character is one of paradox and pulling polarities. He is the youngest and the oldest, he is a man of truth and is embroiled in deceit, he is Yaakov and is Yisrael. Here we explore the competing energies that pull us in different directions, and the aspects of ourselves that hold polarized identities, and the possibility of touching a wholeness that encompasses both ends of the spectrum. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork  This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.

"Yitzchak went out to be a bush in the field" - Immersing Ourselves in the Field of Experience A brief teaching and body scan to invite us into attentive presence. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.

We leave Yom Kippur with a strong awareness of our mortality, and we enter Sukkot to rejoice within our temporary home, under the passing shadows, within this temporal life. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.

Our liturgy speaks a lot about God as King or Melech, and even more intensively during the High Holidays. What is a Melech? How might we relate to this encounter with God when we have never stood before a King? Based on a Kabbalistic teaching on the meaning of the word Melech, this is an exploration of a way to come into contact with the visceral sense of a Melech within our own experience of being alive.

Shofar: Broken Whole How do we bring our parts together to stand before our Creator? Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RW7XP05U6O5L_IuLaVrGe3Qc_LP1pdeE6epsoowk1ZE/edit ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Audio is by David Kwan.

Tisha b'Av - a day for questions with no answers. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shefapodcastnetwork This podcast is supported in part from a grant from the Hadar Institute. Music is by Rabbi Daniel Kohn. To purchase, go to his cdbaby page. Shefa's logo is the "Returning Light Meditation" by Avraham Loewenthal.  Audio is by David Kwan.