Whether you are a beginning or advanced student of meditation, deepen your moment-to-moment awareness in the “friendly” silence at this longtime popular retreat. Enjoy peace of mind and awaken to the boundless nature of “being present” through silent sitting, chanting, walking meditations, insight dialogue and inquiry, and wisdom teachings from Zoharic, Hasidic, Zen & Dzogchen sources.
Rabbi David A. Cooper is an author, lecturer, teacher and meditation guide. Shoshana Cooper is an artist, Tea Ceremony teacher, meditation instructor, composer, and ex-Nursing Instructor. In earlier years, David was a successful businessman, a student of both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions, a sailor and a world traveler. His best selling book, GOD IS A VERB, has been translated into a number of different languages and has sold over 115,000 copies.
Rabbi Cooper and Shoshana have been leaders in the growing popularity in Jewish Meditation. They taught at the Jewish Renewal Kallah for twelve years and they lived in the Old City of Jerusalem the previous eight years.
The Coopers (and Eliezer, see below) have produced a very popular CD: SONGS OF PRAYER AND SILENCE, which includes many of the melodies they use in the morning prayers on retreat. Much of the music was composed by Shoshana. For ten years they have guided programs for beginning and advanced meditators at the Jewish Retreat Center — Elat Chayyim — in upstate New York, which recently became part of the Isabella Freedman Center. They have taught together or individually at Omega Institute in New York, Mt. Madonna in California, the Open Center in New York City, Chochmat HaLev in Berkeley, Yesod in Colorado, Hollyhock in British Columbia, Rowe Conference Center in Mass., as well as in Holland, Germany, Israel, Poland, Australia and New Zealand.
Eliezer Sobel is a musician and the author of Wild Heart Dancing and the novel Minyan: Ten Jewish Men in a World that is Heartbroken, winner of the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel. His next book, due out in February, is The 99th Monkey: A Spiritual Journalist’s Misadventures with Gurus, Messiahs, Sex, Psychedelics & Other Consciousness-Raising Experiments.
Single Room | |
w/ private bath & queen-sized bed |
945 |
w/ private bath |
795 |
w/ shared bath |
695 |
w/ hall bath |
595 |
Double Room | |
w/ private bath & queen-sized bed |
720 |
w/ private bath |
595 |
w/ shared bath |
525 |
w/ hall bath |
475 |
Triple Room | |
w/ private bath |
495 |
w/ hall bath |
395 |
Tent/Commuter | |
300 |
The program fee for this class is by donation and does not include the cost of Room and Board (see table on the right).
Room and board includes housing, meals, Shabbat services, evening activities, hot tub, yoga, meditation, and full use of our facility. All rooms are air-conditioned in the summer and heated in the winter.
Limited financial aid is available.
Please arrive between 2pm and 5pm on the day your retreat begins. Retreats end with brunch at 11:30am on the last day of the retreat.
The Elat Chayyim Center for Jewish Spirituality reserves the right to cancel any program at any time. In this event, you will be given a complete refund.
For transportation: A full refund of transportation fees is available if you cancel at least three days (72 hours) in advance. No refund is available if less than three days notice is given. For more information on getting here, please visit our Travel & Transportation page.