New This Year: Intensive, Pre-Conference Workshops
This year, we're offering a unique opportunity to participate in extended workshop sessions with some of our top presenters on Friday morning of the conference.
Workshop registration will open at 10:00am and workshop sessions will begin promptly at 10:30am, and end between 12:30pm and 2:00pm. Join us for one of these FREE pre-conference sessions, available only to registered conference participants. $10 lunch will be available for purchase and must be pre-ordered by 2/13. Pre-registration required.
Topics include:
Gratitude Workshop: How to Be Happy with Everything (or without Anything!)
Sara Yoheved Rigler
Most
of us complain too much! The opposite of complaining is to have a sense
of gratitude for everything. Gratitude leads to happiness, peace of
mind, successful relationships, and more. This practical, interactive
workshop employs role-playing and innovative exercises so that the
participant actually acquires the skill of gratitude. In the first half,
we will learn to notice and be grateful for the small things that we
usually are oblivious to and to the human beings who usually escape our
radar screen. In the second half, we will tackle becoming grateful for
minor annoyances and major debacles.
Important notes for participants: This
workshop is based on the Kabbalistic tenet that God micromanages the
world. There will not be time during the workshop to discuss or debate
this concept. The Gratitude Workshop is based on several profound
concepts that we will not have time to explore during the Workshop
itself. Therefore, you will get more out of the interactive exercises of
the Workshop if you prepare ahead by reading: http://www.aish.com/sp/pg/What_Do_I_Know.html. Yes....a bit of homework, but worth it! This workshop is 3.5 hours
long with a short lunch break! Lunch must be pre-ordered by
participants for an extra fee.
Sara Yoheved Rigler is the author of three best-sellers: Holy Woman, Lights from Jerusalem, and Battle Plans: How to Fight the Yetzer Hara (with
Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller). She is a popular international lecturer on
subjects of Jewish spirituality. She has given lectures and workshops in
Israel, England, South Africa, Mexico, Canada, and over thirty American
cities. She is one of the most popular authors on Aish.com. A graduate
of Brandeis University, after fifteen years of practicing and teaching
meditation and Eastern philosophy, she discovered "the world's most
hidden religion: Torah Judaism." She presents a highly-acclaimed
Marriage Workshop for women as well as a Gratitude Workshop.
From Story to Stage: A Creative Writing Workshop
Ronda Spinak
This
instructive two-hour workshop will give you the tools to write your
story (or the story of others) for the stage. Learn to ask meaningful
questions to draw out stories that touch the heart. Learn to construct
material in a format that is stage-worthy. We will spend a portion of
our time together writing from prompts and sharing our work with each
other. All are welcome--from professional to first-timer. You don't
even need a story, just a willingness to find one. Bring pad or notebook
and pen, and get ready to write and participate. (Lunch will be
available after this workshop for those who pre-order it.)
Ronda Spinak,
Artistic Director and Co-Founder of the Jewish Women's Theatre, creates
themed shows for JWT's innovative Salon Theatre Series. Through JWT,
she's commissioned and edited dozens of short monologues, plays, poems
and stand-up comedy pieces with Jewish themes for presentation in JWT's
Salons and elsewhere. Spinak co-authored the ground-breaking play, Stories From the Fringe,
revealing for the first-time ever the personal stories of women rabbis.
She is honored and thrilled that this play will be performed with its
original cast on Sunday during the Conference.
Hip-Hop Holidays
Y-Love
Looking
for ways to spice up your Holidays? Try an infusion of Orthodoxy and
Hip-hop. Join Revolutionary hip-hop artist Y-Love for some updated
flavored takes on Passover, Chanukah, Tisha b'Av and Purim. Workshop
includes discussion and hands on participation in design of holiday
festivities. Bring ideas, an open mind and open heart for this
experiential Holiday make-over.
Yitz Jordan (Y-Love)
is an award-winning, inspirational hip-hop artist whose compelling
personality and multilingual musical talents have received worldwide
acclaim from New York to Ukraine. An Orthodox Jew for nine years, Yitz's
unique perspectives on Jewish identity and cross-cultural relations
have captivated minds at schools, theatres, and various houses of
worship worldwide. His unique musical style, blending holy tongues such
as ancient Aramaic and Hebrew, Arabic, Yiddish and Latin over ethnic and
futuristic urban beats, was called the "soundtrack to social
progression" by URB Magazine, and XXL Magazine said that Y-Love "is
making hip-hop kosher."
Case Files From the Beit Din
Michael Broyde
Many
Jewish people adhere to the mandate in Jewish law that requires
bringing certain types of disputes before a rabbinical court, called a
"beit din", rather than a secular court. (Generally these courts
arrange their process as binding arbitration, enforceable in secular
courts.) This workshop will expose people to the types of cases and the
process of dispute resolution used by rabbinical courts in the United
States, and will focus on five different types — family law, financial
law, communal disputes, the obligation to obey secular law, and
synagogue disputes. Attendees will learn about the procedures used in
the Beit Din of America, the largest rabbinical court in the United
States, through the presentation of real cases that came before the beit
din, with facilitated discussion about each case and what outcomes
people anticipate and based on what principles, followed by explanation
of the court's decision and rationale. Be prepared for a lively,
participatory session that will hone the legal and analytical skills
needed to navigate the intricacies of "Jewish justice".
Michael J. Broyde
is professor of law at Emory Law and his primary areas of interest are
law and religion. Broyde is ordained as a rabbi by Yeshiva University,
and is a member (dayan) of the Beth Din of America, the largest Jewish
law court in America, and was the director of that court during the
1997-1998 academic year. Broyde is the founding rabbi of the Young
Israel synagogue in Atlanta, and a founder of the Atlanta Torah MiTzion
kollel study program. With more than 75 articles and book chapters on
law and religion and Jewish law, including "A Jewish Law View of World
Law" and Human Rights in Judaism, Broyde explores topics such as military ethics, the impeachment process, marriage and divorce, and family law.