I left spirituality (read – my Jewish spirituality) as a teenager because it felt to me rigid and rote. In my twenties, I found my way back into spiritual practice through modalities like yoga, meditation, and ecstatic dance. Yet, when I wanted to find Jewish spaces that could offer the type of embodied practice I was looking for…it felt lacking. I couldn’t find it in LA…or Chicago…or New York.
So I decided to start a community called The Sabbath Dance. We started two years ago in Brooklyn to reinvent Kabbalat Shabbat as a high energy ecstatic dance practice. Okay, but would anyone come? This was what I was wondering when we put tickets on sale for the first one. And something surprising happened. The first one SOLD OUT! 70 Jews who wanted to dance (plus a waitlist) showed up. And we haven’t stopped since.
Since that start, I’ve had the opportunity to bring The Sabbath Dance to Chicago and Nashville, and we keep meeting every month in Brooklyn with hundreds and hundreds showing up. (We’re actually meeting tomorrow https://www.viewcy.com/promote/the_sabbath_dance__j_1 ). We’ve brought in teachings from Rebbe Nachman, Kaballah, Chasidut, and beyond with an eye toward ‘where do we feel these teachings in our bodies? How can we dance with them? Scream with them? Sweat with them?’
What I’ve found is that everywhere I go there is a desire for this sort of aliveness in Jewish practice and spiritual practice in general. In the last year alone I’ve had the opportunity to DJ Ecstatic Dances in the USA, Vietnam, India, Nepal, Thailand, and more. And everywhere – I see this desire for people to put their phones away – devices dominated by words – and move into the feeling body.
Does this resonate with you? Whats been your experience with dance and movement in Jewish space as an explicitly spiritual means of exploring Jewish ideas?
submitted by /u/OatmealBeats
[link] [comments]
Source: Reditt
