Jewish Spiritual Growth with Cariocas

My experience leading a Jewish Spirituality workshop series at Rio Hillel, a Jewish community center for young adults in Brazil.

My first few weeks in Brazil, I felt lost in the jungle. Leorah (my best friend and frequent travel partner) and I had sort of crash landed there after we fled the political situation in Peru, we had done no research and spoke zero Portuguese. The cultural barrier was strong and the language barrier was stronger. With no ability to connect with our surroundings, it felt like we were visually observing this seemingly amazing place without really engaging with it. I was vacationing with Leorah for a few weeks with plans to dive into my project connecting with Jewish communities after she left. I created beautiful memories with my best friend, but I longed for the opportunity to meet a local where on some level, we could understand each other.

We were in Rio and Leorah was about to fly home when I discovered there was Hillel* nearby. I almost instantaneously decided I would go spend a lot of time there.

For the last 3 years in San Diego, Hillel was my full time job, my passion, and my WORLD. I would be juggling logistics for six projects at once, at all hours of the day. I was always working on new strategies for engaging more people more deeply. I’d literally wake up in the middle of the night with new program ideas. That place never left my mind. I was dedicated to and consumed by this incredibly specific type of community. Jewish leadership, young adults connecting with community, the development of spiritual and cultural identity, planning Jewish holiday programs, recruiting for Israel trips–that was and is my first language. When I learned that there were others in Rio who not only spoke that specific Jewish-Educator-for-young-adults language, but who also were part of my same organization, it felt obvious to me that’s where I needed to be.

I couldn’t wait to meet them. I remember my first time walking from my hostel to the Hillel house, along the beach from Copacabana to Ipanema. I bought a coconut, paused in front of dozens of beachside shacks with live bands, had a bowl of açaí and watched families dance. I thought about how I was in such a foreign world, but simultaneously, I was about to meet a version of my world, existing here. I was about to meet people who’s regular life is Copacabana Beach AND recruiting for Birthright (an Israel trip program).

I found the door with the mezuzah outside, and was welcomed into a room filled with Jewish books, a surfboard with the Hillel logo in the center, and the most famous Hillel quote in Portuguese*. I sat with two young Hillel professionals in a conference room with the same over-air conditioned air and comfy swivel chairs, just like our conference room back in San Diego.

Then, we spoke our language. We commiserated about challenges of getting young

adults excited to engage with Judaism, we raved about the power of Birthright, and we discussed strategies to empower others to become Jewish leaders. We laughed about the process of experimenting with different programs, trying to understand what excites our students. We shared stories of our awkward events that completely flopped and of ones that succeeded, and the fulfillment it brought us. We talked Purim parties, Kabbalah classes, and Tikkun Olam projects.

In that moment, not only was I not lost in the jungle, but I felt like I knew this space and I could see my place in it. I asked a lot of questions about the students’ interests, looking for an overlap between their interests and what I could uniquely offer. I wanted to spend time getting to know life within these walls and the people that found home here, people like my students and I who found home at SDSU Hillel. And I wanted to connect with Rio Jews about our ever-evolving Jewish identities, share whatever inspiration I have that might resonate with them and be inspired by their unique perspectives and insights.

I’m proud to say, I definitely achieved the latter. I led a 4-part discussion-based workshop on Jewish spirituality, creating a space for us to talk through our personal relationships with spirituality and contemplate how Jewish philosophies and tools might help us inspire and develop our spiritual selves. I used the same general outline of the workshops that I’d led at SDSU Hillel: I’d provide quotes from ancient Jewish texts and modern Jewish scholars, then pose related questions, asking students to share their personal reflections, triggering introspective conversations. (These workshops I led in San Diego were a part of JLF, the Jewish Learning Fellowship, a Hillel International project that currently only exists in the US.)* Usually a JLF educator would start the series of workshops with lighter topics like friendship and community. But I also heard that Rio Hillel once had a good turn out for a Kabbalah class and since I had been reading Jewish with Feeling: A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Practice by Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi, I decided to go for the denser topics. I ended up spending my days during those weeks sitting on Copacabana beach creating my own curriculum diving deep into all types of Jewish spiritual practice, language and expression.

The discussions were even more incredible than I could have imagined.

A core piece of JLF educator training is how to create a space where people are comfortable opening up. We’re taught many strategies for breaking down the social boundaries we put up around new people and in groups. We start the sessions by explaining that the more we allow ourselves to get personal, think out loud, and share without inhibition, the more we will get out of each session. Then we discuss guidelines for our “safe space,” lead ice breaker activities, share our own personal stories to pave the way, etc. I led nine of these 10-series sessions in San Diego, using every strategy I’d learned. And in most classes I’d still get a few long awkward pauses when students were too shy to share.

This was NOT the case in my workshop in Rio.

As a first ice breaker at the first workshop, I asked each student to share a little about their Jewish background. I expected a few sentences about what synagogue or youth group they attended. Instead, I got a 3-5 minute deep dive each, into how their Jewish identity shifted throughout their lives, what it felt like and how different moments and people impacted how they see themselves as a Jew today. It was completely unexpected and so beautiful. They seemed to be itching to share their stories and fascinated to hear each other. By the second workshop, I discovered I could basically skip the entire 20 minute “warm-up” of the session and dive right in, not wasting a moment doing anything other than discovering each other’s profound and personal insights.

I can think of three explanations for this difference. First: It’s cultural. Brazilians are just more socially laid-back. It’s infinitely more acceptable in Brazil to just walk up to a stranger and start talking. Small talk is unnecessary and most Brazilians seem at ease immediately discussing many topics most Americans would find taboo even among close friends. People don’t seem as socially anxious here and just speak what is on their mind. I didn’t have these stubborn American social boundaries to break down.

Second: It was this specific group of people. When I led JLF in California, I worked really hard to recruit the group. I found most American students weren’t actively seeking out introspective Jewish discussion, so I sold them on the idea of making new friends, feeling more connected to their community, enjoying some good snacks, and literally getting paid, (full participation in the 10-week program comes with a stipend). I do believe that most students got far more out of the workshop than they had expected and found it profoundly valuable in the end. But very few entered eager for deep Jewish conversation. In Rio, the Hillel staff promoted my workshop with a simple Instagram post that contained a photo of me, (a stranger to the students) under the heading “Spirituality Workshop” and a

sentence or two of high-level description. If we did that in California, I honestly don’t think anyone would have come, not if no one knew the educator or was personally encouraged to attend. But in Rio, there was a hunger for this type of workshop. I didn’t get TONS of people, but in total, about 12 Cariocas (Brazilians from Rio) decided to head across town after their long days of work and show up for a spiritual Jewish discussion they simply saw posted on Instagram, no money or convincing involved. For a variety of different reasons, each of these individuals came ready and craving introspective Jewish conversation.

I think the overarching reason they all came was that, outside of the Orthodox institutions, there aren’t any regularly offered Jewish learning opportunities for young adults in Rio. There are many amazing Jewish youth movements, where the older teens lead the Jewish educational activities for the younger kids, every Saturday and at their Jewish summer camps. But they all age out by their early 20s. Some of my participants grew up very involved in these progressive Jewish communities and came because there hasn’t been much opportunity to be engaged Jewishly since. Others actually grew up in the Orthodox institutions. They explained that as they become modern adults, they are finding

themselves interested in maintaining their Jewish identities in new ways, outside of simply and strictly observing Jewish laws. And finally some others hadn’t really grown up with Judaism at all, but have Jewish heritage, went on Birthright, and came back intrigued to continue exploring their Jewish identities. They all came from such different backgrounds, but all with the same desire to discuss their Judaism.

And finally, I believe the workshop went well because (at risk of sounding egotistical) I’ve become good at leading these types of conversations. After leading 9 formal JLF groups while working at Hillel, I’ve also been constantly discussing religion, spirituality and Judaism throughout my travels. Most days, often multiple times a day, someone asks me what I’m doing in South America. Once I explain my passion for international Jewish communities and they will look me down in my crop top and shorts, and ask about my “religiousness.” Half the time this question will spark an entire discussion about the definition of religion and the different roles it can play in a person’s life. The person who asked me about my religiosity will share their whole history/relationship with religion, community and spirituality, and I’ll share mine. What is an intense topic for many people has actually become an ingrained part of my day-to-day conversations.

The Brazilian social culture, this unique group of Carioca, and my ability to facilitate, we had discussions that I’m still thinking about months later and inspired my own relationship with spirituality. In our second class we discussed “unstructured spirituality.” In our first, we discussed “structured spirituality”: what kind of impact rituals and traditions are meant to have on us, when they do and don’t resonate with us, where we see potential to achieve more spiritual fulfillment out of them, etc. Then in contrast, this second class was about spirituality outside of any structure; i.e., spontaneously in their day-to-day situations. Inspired by an Abraham Joshua Heschel text about wonder, the conversation went to Socrates and Aristotle and we discussed the concept of wonder as an attitude. One girl explained how reactionary prayer like the Shehecheyanu* helped her recognize wonder in her life. She’ll say the prayer spontaneously whenever she’s experiencing deep appreciation for an especially beautiful moment, and that it helps her reflect on everything that had to unfold for the moment to be exactly how it is. Then others followed, sharing their thoughts on how they might integrate more of that attitude into the regular fabric of their lives.

The last text was one I had actually used before many times, but it never meant as much to me as it did after this class. (It’s by Jay Michaelson, a writer/professor/meditation teacher with a rabbinic degree and PHD in Jewish philosophy.)

Source 5) Jay Michaelson, What is Spirituality? From “The Gate of Tears” (p. 8)

What is spirituality? The word has many meanings as it does practitioners. For some, it is something to do with having a certain kind of experience: relaxation, a sense of the profound, love, calm, chalance, maybe even holiness. Many things can bring this about: hymns in church, yoga poses, painting, gardening, meeting friends, EDM concerts, sex, drugs, meditation, cigars. It’s not the what, it's the how - and it’s a short term transformation. Before I did X, I was feeling A. After I did X, I felt B.

But the spirituality of special experiences only goes so far. At a certain point, it becomes a dead end, with the practitioners always searching for the next high, privileging some experiences over others, and not really having a way to integrate peak experiences with the rest of life.

Most of my American students get defensive here at first, seeing activities like yoga and drugs being grouped together. But it clicked immediately with one of my Rio students, (a teen girl with an Orthodox background). She created a lengthy example of a drug addict that could actually apply to all the other activities listed. She talked about how if you become accustomed to using something in order to achieve a specific feeling, you’re likely to become less open to achieving that feeling regularly without it. She argued that when using these spiritual tools we can simply get swept up in the feeling then and fall back down afterwards, or we take something away from the experience to apply more generally to lives. We all started discussing how we needed to shift the goal of our “spiritual activities” (whichever we use) away from simply activating a spiritual emotion, and instead using the activity to gain a deeper spiritual understanding. People began processing outloud the various moments or activities that have made them feel spiritual, contemplating how to integrate an understanding from it back into their lives. Listening to each other’s highly personal and profound introspections, we had become a spiritual group therapy session. When the class ended, I went home thinking about my spiritual experiences and how they might speak to the way I can more generally feel connected to the world.

It was a weird moment because I feel spiritual during my Jewish experiences and during my travel experiences, and I feel the most spiritual when I get to combine them. Leading that class in itself was an intensely spiritual moment for me; walking home that night was like coming off of a spiritual moment. I felt like I was a part of a vast and beautiful network of people being inspired by each other. Every sentiment shared was like a link to infinite future links/sentiments shared, each with unfathomable potential to shape others, and I got to help create and strengthen so many links.

When I get to consciously observe the links I’m a part of or have contributed to, it gives me a spiritual high. But after that specific discussion, I thought about how I am actually constantly engaging with this network. In a way we all are, whenever we share an idea, support someone, or a person is influenced by something we do, we’re building a potentially important link in the universe’s web of connections.

From then on as I continued traveling in Brazil, I tried to see my everyday random interactions this way, each with the ability to inspire, each with unintelligible potential to impact the network. In turn, I do feel more regularly a part of something greater.

Anyway, a big shoutout to everyone who participated in that workshop, I’m incredibly grateful to have met all of you and for all your wonderful insights. Thanks to Rio’s Hillel for hosting me in their space. And in general, I’m sending my gratitude to everyone I interacted with in Brazil, (during my time in Rio and afterwards). Thank you for taking me from feeling like I was lost in the jungle to having formed a deep bond with an incredible country, culture and people.

*Hillel: An international Jewish non-profit creating Jewish community centers for young adults. Most are located on American college campuses and host all kinds of creative educational, religious, cultural, community service, and social programs for students.

*Famous Hillel quote: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I'm only for myself, who am I? And if not now, when?" In last photo, see "If not now, when?" in Portuguese.

*JLF, the Jewish Learning Fellowship: a 10-week discussion-based workshop series created for young adults to explore their Jewish identities in community. It's a project through Hillel International that provides Hillel staff special training and curriculum to host sessions every semester at dozens of different Hillels across the United States.

*Shehecheyanu: A Jewish prayer that expresses gratitude, said before doing something for the first time (lighting the first candles of a holiday, first time a group of people has gathers, the first meal in a new house, etc) or more generally to mark a joyous or special occasion.