Celebrate this Shavuot holiday at our majestic retreat center in the Connecticut Berkshires two hours from New York City.
Enjoy kosher farm-to-table meals with different rooming options including camping (bring your own tent) on our beautiful grounds.
See retreat details below.
Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement: [to] get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.
Shavuot is the time when the community gathers around the mountain, and makes pilgrimage to a holy place, for the ultimate transformative experience.
Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi זצ׳ל
Scholarships: We believe retreats are important experiences to be shared. Inclusiveness is one of our core values. We strive to ensure that our retreats are as financially accessible as possible. The Tamar Fund makes that aspiration possible – please apply for a scholarship before registering. The Tamar Fund is in loving memory of Tamar Bittelman z’’l. Scholarships are available for the full stay only.
We will have two davening options: an Open Orthodox Minyan and an ALEPH: Jewish Renewal Minyan, supplemented with Minchas led by Eliana Light.
Spiritual, meaningful and song-filled services will follow a traditional Orthodox liturgy. Prayer will be supplemented with Kavanot (intentions) and words of Torah from both sides of the mechitzah. All are welcome and may sit in the section that most aligns with one’s gender identity.
Renewal services are about going deep into prayer through chant, meditation, embodied movement, and more. We will use musical instruments in this minyan.
Shavuot invites us to stand under the chuppah & make a commitment to the Infinite One as Beloved. That’s what it means to stand at Sinai, the place where we are continually receiving the Torah each moment. Shavuot is the marker of this journey of radical amazement that is being in intimate relationship with the Great Mystery. In the words of Rabbi Jay Michaelson, “Give me the guts & tears & life-blood of a prayer unashamed of its nakedness, pleading & demanding, shuckling & clapping, or at times at which the soul is in constriction, just going through the motions in the hope that something, somewhere will loosen.”
You’re invited to the Light Lab, where we’ll play with prayer and hold the gems of our liturgy to the light! Join educator and musician Eliana Light for services & sessions over Shavuot, opportunities to experiment with t’fillah (prayer & liturgy) and see what shines through. When it comes to t’fillah, we’re all experts and we’re all beginners. There’s always more to discover!
Planning for the 2024 retreat is underway. See our previous 2023 retreat schedule here.
Our all-night learning will include Torah and text classes on radical amazement, tefillah, and wonder. Or, join us at the bonfire for an all-night niggun bonfire!
Check out the following examples of classes.
Unlearning Jewish Anxiety offers practical tools for folks who feel anxious about being and doing Jewish in an uncertain world. We’ll explore some internalized anti-Jewish oppression patterns about our safety, worthiness, and belonging in the world. Then we’ll take a brief tour through the fascinating neuroscience of anxiety, habits, and rewards-based learning. The workshop concludes with simple, Jewish embodied practices can help us live more in the present moment with more self-compassion, awareness, curiosity, and courage.
Spiritual awakening is the realization that you are far more than your thoughts and feelings. Beneath your personality, there is a radiant field of awareness, free from negativity and connected to the aliveness of the present moment. This workshop will offer a direct taste of awakening through transformational Torah teachings, heart-opening Hebrew chanting, and deep silence.
Learn More at: www.TorahOfAwakening.com
Details coming soon!
The Mishna tells us that Shavuot is a time to gather our bikkurim, the first fruits of our harvest, and bring them as gifts to the Temple in Jerusalem. Join us as we reenact this ancient pilgrimage to celebrate our local first fruits of rye, mustard greens, spring garlic, and more. The ceremony will include costumes, goats, and drums.
Join our Adamah Farm staff on night walks, guided hikes, farm tours, a walk through Chestnutlandia, and more.
Enjoy twice-a-day yoga, gather in song circles, and join a guided reflection on the Omer.
Isabella Freedman’s youth programming is an outdoor-focused, collaborative, and exciting experience for all who choose to join. Grounded in the natural world, our program provides the opportunity for children ages 2-12 to find a place to learn, grow, and enjoy the beautiful outdoors at Camp Adamah.
Camp Teva provides many hands-on and nature-based experiential activities. Some examples include hikes, outdoor games, drama/improv, and farm-related adventures on the Adamah farm. We provide morning and afternoon programming except on arrival and departure days, with times based on the davening schedule. The afternoon session is divided into separate divisions by age.
Parents and guardians can choose to drop off their children or stay with them. Gan Adamah provides a safe and engaging space to play, explore, sing, and move. Children younger than two may attend, but parents/guardians must stay. Programming is provided in the morning except on arrival and departure days, and times are based on the davening schedule.
Coming soon
Ezra Weinberg is a rabbi, ritual musician and educator dedicated to facilitating and supporting transformative Jewish rituals. He founded “ReVoice,” a network of resources for Jews going through Divorce, which aims to redefine the communal response to this life stage. He is a native Philadelphian and holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Transformation. Reb Ezra officiates weddings and Bnai Mitzvot and teaches a University Course called “One G-d, Three Paths” alongside a Minister and an Imam.
Ariel Yisraelah Hendelman is the Spiritual Leader of B’nai Or Boston, a Jewish Renewal community, & a Rabbinic student with the Aleph Ordination Program. Ariel counts chant & meditation as the cornerstones of her spiritual practice, as well as hitbodedut walks in the woods. She co-leads a Rosh Chodesh circle for Or HaLev, as well as retreats in the New England area, centering around rituals & tools for expanded consciousness & deeper connection with Judaism’s sacred spiral time. Ariel’s writing can be found in Ayin Press & Doubleblind Magazine. Her debut album, Prayers for Fire & Water, was released in September & weaves folky Americana with devotional niggunim. Ariel currently lives in Waban, MA with her cat Ezra, who routinely hogs the covers.
Kohenet Elana is a celebrated singer-songwriter, song leader, and Hebrew Priestess rooted in rural Appalachia, with a decade of Jewish life and leadership in New York City. She is an ordained Hebrew Priestess, a student in the ALEPH Ordination Program, and is a rising star in both Jewish and secular music and leadership. Elana creates ritual spaces and musical experiences that move the soul with a deep love for the Divine and Mother Earth that resource all her work. Elana serves as the visionary prayer leader and founder of a blossoming ritual community for earth-based Judaism in Asheville, NC.
Listen to her beautiful, B’Shem Hashem (Angels of Peace)
Here’s her whole-hearted folk song, The Insect. Find out where Elana is offering prayer and ritual and song next here: www.elanabrody.com and @elanatreestar on Instagram
Eliana Light believes in the power of t’fillah to change our lives, communities, and world. She is a sought-after t’fillah leader, consultant, musician, and artist-in-residence, and is the founder and co-host of the Light Lab Podcast. She received her MA in Jewish Education from JTS in 2016 and lives in Durham, NC.
Dr. Rachel Feldman is an anthropologist of Judaism and Assistant Professor of Religion at Dartmouth College. She is the author of Messianic Zionism in the Digital Age: Jews, Noahides, and the Third Temple Imaginary (Rutgers, 2024) and her scholarship has focused on messianism, transnational religion, gender studies, and Jewish mysticism. She is currently working on a new book project on health and healing in Breslov Hasidism.
Reb Brian Yosef Schachter-Brooks is a Jewish spiritual teacher, rabbi and musician. He has been teaching Jewish spirituality to children and adults since 2000, and founded the online Jewish Meditation community, Torah of Awakening, in 2016. He is the author of Kabbalah for Beginners, published by Rockridge Press, and Integral Jewish Meditation – Three Portals of Presence for Spiritual Awakening.
Reb Brian Yosef received rabbinic s’miha (ordination) in the Renewal tradition and lineage of Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi z”l through Rabbi David Zaslow and a haimish group of rabbis at Havurah Shir Hadash in Ashland, Oregon in 2023. Prior to that, he received ordinations as Minister of Sacred Music from Reb Zalman z”l (2012), Spiritual Teacher from Shaykh Ibrahim Baba Farajaje (may his secret be sanctified) and Rabbi SaraLeya Schley (2012), certification as Teacher of Jewish Meditation from Dr. Rabbi Avram Davis (2004), and holds a Bachelor in Music from the Eastman School of Music (1991).
