In beautiful Mill Valley, California, we will hold our second annual multi-day retreat specifically designed for young adults! This program invites you to slow down, connect with yourself and others, and drop into what matters most. Amidst the challenges of daily life and the tumultuous challenges in the world around us, this is an opportunity for deep renewal, healing, and transformation. 

Utilizing the gifts of mindfulness, embodiment, song, prayer, and a variety of Jewish spiritual teachings, you will:

• Learn tools and practices to reconnect with your innate wisdom and authenticity.
• Nurture your capacity for resilience, compassion, and well-being.
• Cultivate insight and wise action in response to the challenges of our world.
• Refresh and renew your body, heart, mind, and soul.

Falling shortly after the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’av, a day of mourning, and including Tu B’av, a day of celebrating love, our retreat is a sacred space to open our hearts to grief, love, and everything in between.

All folks in their 20’s and 30’s are welcome. No experience with mindfulness and/or Judaism is necessary. This retreat will be held mostly in social silence.

Schedule: Participants should plan to arrive at Ralston White Retreat Center between 3:00 – 5:00 PM PT on Tuesday, August 5 to register and get settled. The retreat will begin with dinner at 5:30 PM PT and an opening session at 6:30 PM PT. The retreat will end at 12 PM PT on Sunday, August 10. Participants are welcome to stay through lunch.

Faculty

Rebecca Schisler, Teacher, (she/her) is Core Faculty at IJS, a meditation teacher, artist, and Jewish educator. A devoted contemplative practitioner, she has led groups and taught classes and retreats with Or HaLev, Awakened Heart Project, Orot, Wilderness Torah, Pardes, and Stanford School of Medicine. She was previously the Director of Student Health & Well-being at Stanford University’s Hillel, and co-authored the Mahloket Matters Schools Curriculum with the Pardes Center for Jewish Educators. A student rabbi at ALEPH, Rebecca is passionate about integrating ancestral wisdom traditions with innovative approaches to personal and collective healing and liberation. She teaches Jewish spirituality as an embodied, holistic, and accessible path, with relevant and timely wisdom for all.

Keshira haLev Fife, Teacher, (she/they) is a Kohenet (Hebrew Priestess) and a bi-racial, queer Jewish person who delights in serving as davennatrix (shlichat tzibbur), lifespiral ceremony/ritual creatrix, consultant, facilitator, teacher, liturgist and songstress.  She serves as Founding Kohenet of Kesher Pittsburgh and Core Faculty Member with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, and also enjoys working with Beloved, The Jewish Studio Project, Kirva, the Avodah Institute for Social Change, and the Jewish Learning Collaborative, among other national Jewish organisations. Though both the lands of the Osage & Haudenosaunee people (aka Pittsburgh, PA) and the Gadigal people (Sydney, AUS) feel like home, Keshira and her beloved have been in an extended period of travel since January 2023.

Alison Cohen, Teacher, (she/her), also known as Ali, loves supporting people in strengthening their capacity to connect: with themselves, with others, and with ancient and contemporary wisdom traditions. Ali's journey to practice began as a young adult when she was desperate for guidance on how to compassionately navigate her tumultuous internal landscape, not to mention the world. On a young adult retreat, she found what she was looking for. Ali has practiced extensively in Buddhist and Jewish meditation spaces ever since. A former public high school teacher and mindfulness program director, Ali guides Two Wings Mindfulness which offers courses, retreats, and coaching grounded in the wisdom of trauma-sensitive mindfulness. In addition, she mentors in the global Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program and teaches in Tara Brach's 2025 Year of Courageous Loving course. Ali has trained with the Jewish Mindfulness Center of Brooklyn, Mindful Schools, OrHaLev and IJS (Yesod), the UMass Center for Mindfulness (MBSR), David Treleaven (trauma-sensitive mindfulness and internal family systems), Taproot’s Community Ritualist Training Program, and the International Institute for Restorative Practices, as well as under the guidance of several beloved teachers. 

Jes Heppler, Assistant Teacher, (they/them) is a writer, researcher, and meditation teacher committed to exploring the ineffable through mindfulness, felt sense, and language. As a PhD Candidate in Philosophy at UC Berkeley, Jes is writing a dissertation on the role of embodied experience in gut feelings and more broadly explores the relationship between the mind, the body, and knowledge. During Jes’ doctoral studies, their long-standing interest in these topics led them into Jewish and contemplative practice outside the classroom. Jes founded and previously led the Queer Sit Collective in Boston, MA and they regularly teach for the Shevet community at IJS and for RUACH in the Greater Boston area. Jes is a graduate of IJS’ and Or HaLev’s Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training. Their writing has been featured at Hey Alma and At the Well. 

Ruthie Praskins, Chef, (she/her) is an Ashkenazi Jewish chef, herbalist, ritualist, and grief tender. She runs The Healing Hearth, a botanically-forward and gluten-free friendly farm to table private chef service in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ruthie orients towards food as medicine and the daily opportunity to court deeper intimacy with the living ecosystems which nourish our bodies and that we belong to. Ruthie is passionate about Nourishment as an integral pathway in supporting the human capacity to show up resourced and embodied in these times and finds great joy in alchemizing local ingredients and medicinal herbs into edible art. Ruthie weaves extensive knowledge from training in Functional Nutrition, Ayurveda, Vitalist Herbalism, Community Grief Ritual, and Somatic Trauma Resolution into her custom menus and Way. 

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