Shefa Gold

Last updated
Shefa Gold
Born
Sherri Katz

Shanks Village (now Orangeburg), New York, U.S.
Education
OccupationRabbi
SpouseRachmiel O'Regan
Website www.rabbishefagold.com

Shefa Gold (born 1954 or 1955) [1] is an American rabbi, scholar, and Director of the Center for Devotional, Energy and Ecstatic Practice (C-DEEP) in Jemez Springs, New Mexico. Gold is a teacher of chant, Jewish mysticism, Jewish prayer and spirituality who Rabbi Mike Comins described in 2010 as "a pioneer in the ecstatic practice of Jewish chant." [2] Her chants have been used in synagogues, minyanim, and street protests; perhaps her most well known being "Ozi V'zimrat Yah". [3] [4] Combining traditional Jewish liturgical music with Hebrew chant, Gold has worked to cultivate a distinctly Jewish gratitude practice. [5] Her "Flavors of Gratefulness" mobile app has 109 different chants for Modeh Ani, the brief prayer traditionally recited by religious Jews upon awakening. [6] In 2024 she released "Flavors of Praise" with 61 different chants.

Prior to her rabbinical training, Gold worked as a musician. She said in a 2013 interview, "What I was really trying to do with my music was create sacred space. I felt how powerful music is in opening hearts." [7] [8] During her training at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, she took time off to study Zen meditation practices (including chant). During a 1993 retreat led by Thích Nhât Hanh at the Omega Institute, Gold co-led a Rosh Hashanah service as many of the participants were Jewish. [9] By the time Gold was ordained as a rabbi in 1996, she had integrated Hebrew chant into her spiritual practice and, ultimately, her rabbinate (ministry). [8] She is a leader within ALEPH: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal, and received ordination from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi in addition to her Reconstructionist one. [5] [10] Through a program named Kol Zimra, Gold has trained rabbis, cantors, and lay leaders in Hebrew chant practices. [7] [11] According to one Jewish Telegraphic Agency article, nearly all interest in Jewish chanting today can be traced back to Gold. [3] She was included in Letty Cottin Pogrebin's 2007 list, The Other Fifty Rabbis in America, [12] a 2015 list of "America's most inspiring rabbis" by The Forward , [1] and has been quoted in articles that discuss the intersection of New Age spirituality and Judaism. [3] [13] [14]

Gold has produced ten albums, and her liturgies have been published in several[ which? ] prayerbooks. [15]

She is the author of several books on deepening spiritual awareness through sacred chant and meditation.

Gold's work was featured in the book Stalking Elijah: Adventures with Today's Jewish Mystical Masters by Rodger Kamenetz. [16]

In 2017, Gold was one of the rabbis who signed a statement by Jewish Veg encouraging Jews to take up a vegan lifestyle. [17] [18]

Gold has described Hebrew chant as effective for healing and transforming people of different religions, not just adherents of Judaism. [7]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reconstructionist Judaism</span> Denomination of Judaism

Reconstructionist Judaism is a Jewish movement based on the concepts developed by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan (1881–1983) that views Judaism as a progressively evolving civilization rather than just a religion. The movement originated as a semi-organized stream within Conservative Judaism, developed between the late 1920s and the 1940s before seceding in 1955, and established a rabbinical college in 1967. Reconstructionist Judaism is recognized by many scholars as one of the five major streams of Judaism in America alongside Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Humanistic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in Judaism</span> Role of women in Judaism

Women in Judaism have affected the course of Judaism over millenia. Their role is reflected in the Hebrew Bible, the Oral Law, by custom, and by cultural factors. Although the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature present various female role models, religious law treats women in specific ways. According to a 2017 study by the Pew Research Center, women account for 52% of the worldwide Jewish population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siddur</span> Jewish prayerbook

A siddur is a Jewish prayer book containing a set order of daily prayers. The word siddur comes from the Hebrew root ס־ד־ר‎, meaning 'order.'

A rabbi is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as semikha—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of the rabbi developed in the Pharisaic and Talmudic eras, when learned teachers assembled to codify Judaism's written and oral laws. The title "rabbi" was first used in the first century CE. In more recent centuries, the duties of a rabbi became increasingly influenced by the duties of the Protestant Christian minister, hence the title "pulpit rabbis", and in 19th-century Germany and the United States rabbinic activities including sermons, pastoral counseling, and representing the community to the outside, all increased in importance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewish Renewal</span> Movement in Judaism

Jewish Renewal is a Jewish religious movement originating in the 20th century that endeavors to reinvigorate modern Judaism with Kabbalistic, Hasidic, and musical practices. Specifically, it seeks to reintroduce the "ancient Judaic traditions of mysticism and meditation, gender equality and ecstatic prayer" to synagogue services. It is distinct from the baal teshuva movement of return to Orthodox Judaism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Waskow</span> American author, political activist, and rabbi

Arthur Ocean Waskow is an American author, political activist, and rabbi associated with the Jewish Renewal movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reconstructionist Rabbinical College</span> Jewish seminary in Wyncote, Pennsylvania

The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) is a Jewish seminary in Wyncote, Pennsylvania. It is the only seminary affiliated with Reconstructionist Judaism. It is accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. RRC has an enrollment of approximately 80 students in rabbinic and other graduate programs.

Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to make the religious, legal, and social status of Jewish women equal to that of Jewish men in Judaism. Feminist movements, with varying approaches and successes, have opened up within all major branches of the Jewish religion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Letty Cottin Pogrebin</span> American author, journalist, lecturer, and social justice activist

Letty Cottin Pogrebin is an American author, journalist, lecturer, and social activist. She is a founding editor of Ms. magazine, the author of twelve books, and was an editorial consultant for the TV special Free to Be... You and Me for which she earned an Emmy.

Lynn Gottlieb is an American rabbi in the Jewish Renewal movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Green</span> American rabbi and theologian

Arthur Green is an American scholar of Jewish mysticism and Neo-Hasidic theologian. He was a founding dean of the non-denominational rabbinical program at Hebrew College in Boston. He describes himself as an American Jew who was educated entirely by the generation of immigrant Jewish intellectuals cast up on American shores by World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lawrence Kushner</span>

Lawrence Kushner is a Reform rabbi and the scholar-in-residence at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco, California.

Rabbi Goldie Milgram is an American rabbi, educator, and writer. She is best known as the "rebbe-on-the-road," for her travels worldwide as a seeker and teacher of Torah, Jewish spiritual practices and she is a specialist in the fields of Jewish experiential and spiritual education. "Reb Goldie" founded (2000) and heads the 501C3 non-profit Reclaiming Judaism, serves as editor-in-chief for Reclaiming Judaism Press, and in 2014 she founded a three-year distance-learned training program for Jewish educators titled Jewish Spiritual Education (JSE): Maggid-Educator Training.

Dan Ehrenkrantz is an American Reconstructionist rabbi, currently serving as the outgoing president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pennsylvania.

Sandy Eisenberg Sasso is the first woman to have been ordained a rabbi in Reconstructionist Judaism. She was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, on May 19, 1974. She is also the author of many children's books on religious topics.

Jamie Korngold is a Reform Jewish rabbi. In 2001, she founded the Adventure Rabbi program, a not-for-profit organization based in Boulder, Colorado which integrates spirituality and the outdoors. For example, people in the Adventure Rabbi program

...climb mountains, go skiing, play the guitar and sing around a campfire.

Rabbi Dayle A. Friedman is a pioneer in the development of a Jewish spiritual vision for aging, spiritual care and healing. She was the founding director of Hiddur: The Center for Aging and Judaism at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, which provided education, spiritual resources, and scholarship for elders and their caregivers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judith Kaplan Eisenstein</span>

Judith Eisenstein was an author, musicologist, composer, theologian and the first person to celebrate a bat mitzvah publicly in America.

Phyllis Ocean Berman is the founder of the Riverside Language Program in New York City for adult immigrants and refugees. Opening in 1979, she traveled from her home in West Mount Airy, Philadelphia via Amtrak to the school in New York City so that newly arrived immigrants could receive an intensive English-language education. She was its director until her retirement in 2016. She is a teacher and prayer leader in the Jewish Renewal movement as well as a political activist who writes about and has been arrested for non-violently protesting for immigrant rights.

Marcia Prager is an American rabbi, teacher and spiritual leader. She was Director and Dean of the Aleph Ordination Program, and rabbi of the P'nai Or Jewish Renewal community in West Mount Airy, Philadelphia. Prager was the founding rabbi of a sister congregation, P'nai Or of Princeton, New Jersey, where she served for thirteen years. She is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia where she received rabbinic ordination in 1989. In 1990, she also received personal semikhah from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi with whom she worked to advance the Jewish Renewal movement until his death in 2014.

References

  1. 1 2 Eisner, Jane (2015). "America's Most Inspiring Rabbis: 33 Men & Women Who Move Us". The Forward .
  2. ↑ Comins, Mike (2010). Making Prayer Real: Leading Jewish Spiritual Voices on why Prayer is Difficult and what to Do about it. Jewish Lights Publishing. ISBN   978-1-58023-417-7.
  3. 1 2 3 Harris, Ben (2010-11-23). "With shruti boxes and drums, practitioners chanting their way into Judaism". Jewish Telegraphic Agency .
  4. ↑ Mathias, Christopher (2018-10-31). "Trump's Visit To Pittsburgh — A City That Didn't Want Him". Huffington Post.
  5. 1 2 Abernethy, Bob (2005-09-30). "Jewish Renewal". PBS.
  6. ↑ Cohen, Susannah (2018-11-02). "Thank goodness: Gratitude may just be the secret to a happy life". So Tov.
  7. 1 2 3 Byle, Ann (May 7, 2013). "Shefa Gold: The Joy of Hebrew Chant". Publishers Weekly . Retrieved 2019-11-12.
  8. 1 2 Palmer, Joanne (2013-04-12). "A chant encounter with God: How a Paramus teen grew into a rabbi in search of heaven's gate". Jewish Standard .
  9. ↑ Steinfels, Peter (1993-09-19). "At a Retreat, a Zen Monk Plants the Seeds of Peace". The New York Times .
  10. ↑ "Authors". Evolve. 2017-11-20. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  11. ↑ "Kol Zimra: Chant Leader's Professional Development" . Retrieved 2019-12-29.
  12. ↑ Letty Cottin Pogrebin (April 16, 2007). "The Other Top Fifty Rabbis in America". Lilith . Retrieved January 7, 2020.
  13. ↑ "Rabbi Shefa Gold: Giving Voice to Sacred Texts". Spirituality & Health. 2013-07-24.
  14. ↑ Schultz, Matthew (2019-10-09). "Of Tao and Torah: New Age Beliefs Are Making Serious Inroads in U.S. Jewish Life". Haaretz .
  15. ↑ "Rabbi Shefa Gold". rabbishefagold.com. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  16. ↑ Kamenetz, Rodger (1997). Stalking Elijah: Adventures with Today's Jewish Mystical Masters . Harper Collins. ISBN   978-0-06-064232-7.
  17. ↑ "70-Plus Rabbis Urge Transition Toward Animal-Free, Plant-Based Diets". issuu.com. Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle. 2017-09-29. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-06-01.
  18. ↑ "New Jewish Veg – Rabbinic Statement on Plant-based Diet". Animal Interfaith Alliance. 2017-09-29. Retrieved 2023-06-01.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.