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What Kind of Person Do You Want to Be?
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How Do You Nurture and Deepen Your Ethical Life?
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What Practices Sustain Your Spirit?
Do you wonder how you can show up for challenging times with compassion, courage, equanimity and joy? Amidst uncertainty, one thing is clear. How we do our work on the outside depends upon the work we do on the inside.
As Reconstructionists we believe that Judaism offers us a treasure trove of practices to help us in the challenge of becoming better versions of ourselves. In addition to the importance of “belonging” and “believing” to religious life, Jews have always placed a great emphasis on “behaving.” While Reconstructionists do not view traditional Jewish law (halakha) as binding, we do look to our ancestors’ wisdom to help structure our lives in meaningful ways. For example, Shabbat can be understood as a powerful spiritual discipline through which we cultivate the virtues of patience, equanimity and awareness.
Jews are not the only ones renewing ancient spiritual practices for our own time. As Reconstructionists, we believe we have much to learn from the wisdom of other faiths. We have found that sharing spiritual practices is a tool for building relationships across diverse faiths, cultures and identities, We create conversations across communities around the cultivation of character. We have learned meditation from Buddhists, yoga from Hindus, chanting from Muslims, and spiritual direction from Christians. We are comfortable with transparency around that borrowing, even as we return to discover new treasures in our own Jewish tradition.
The videos below feature campus chaplains of many faiths sharing how their own lives and work are enhanced by their particular spiritual practices.
We also invite you to listen to our podcast series, hosted by college faculty members and showcasing our multifaith partners as they respond to questions posed by young activists.
Through Spirit in Practice, we mine our traditions so we can live into a more peaceful and just future together.
We acknowledge with tremendous gratitude the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation, which made this project possible.
