Rabbi Natan Margalit interprets Hasidic wisdom on how to respond to distraction and unwanted thoughts during prayer.​

Natan Margalit was raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, studied Anthropology at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, made aliya, and studied for many years in Israeli yeshivot. He received rabbinic ordination at The Jerusalem Seminary in 1990 and earned a Ph.D.  in Talmud from U.C. Berkeley in 2001. Natan blogs and teaches at Organic Torah (www.OrganicTorah.org), bringing together his interests in Jewish texts, the environment and paradigm shift. He lives in Newton, MA with his wife Ilana and sons, Nadav and Eiden.

Does it make sense to pray petitionary prayers, or pray at all, if you don’t believe in a God who “decides” to grant or deny your wishes? Rabbi Dr. Jay Michaelson shares his approach, and places the question in the historical context of Jewish prayer.

Jay Michaelson is the founder of Nehirim. For the last ten years, Jay has been a leading advocate for the inclusion of sexual minorities in religious communities, and his work in this area has been featured on NPR, CNN, and the New York Times. Jay is also a contributing editor to the Forward, Associate Editor of Religion Dispatches magazine, and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. In 2009, he was included on the Forward 50 list of the top-50 men and women leading the American Jewish community into the 21st century. He is the author of four books, including Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Englightenment and God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality.

Rabbi Lavey Derby recalls his encounter with M. Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled, and the lesson he learned.

Rabbi Lavey Yitzchak Derby currently serves as Director of Jewish Life at the Peninsula Jewish Community Center. From 1991-2010 he served as the Rabbi of Congregation Kol Shofar in Tiburon, California where he was instrumental in building a community built on the principles of Torah study, spiritual quest and practice, and social justice. He served as director of Jewish education at the 92nd Street “Y” in New York, and on the national faculty of the Wexner Heritage Foundation. He has lectured across the country and taught on subjects ranging from Rabbinic and Jewish thought to Hasidism and contemporary Jewish spirituality. In the summer of 2010 he was named a Senior Rabbinic Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and was certified as a Jewish mindfulness meditation teacher by the Institute of Jewish Spirituality.
Rabbi Derby is the Founder and lead teacher of “The Idra: A Community for Jewish Spiritual Learning and Practice” and is the eighth generation direct descendant of Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, for whom he is named – part of a family line of rabbis that traces back to the year 1500.

Can prayer transform us? Renowned Jewish thinker and scholar Rabbi Rachel Adler, PhD, explains the process. Focusing on self-change in our society is often self-centered. But prayer that touches transcendence, teaches Dr. Adler, can help us to feel the suffering of others without succumbing to despair.

Rabbi Rachel Adler, PhD is the Rabbi David Ellenson Professor of Jewish Religious Thought and Professor of Modern Jewish Thought and Feminist Studies at HUC-JIR/Los Angeles.  She was one of the first theologians to integrate feminist perspectives and concerns into the interpretation of Jewish texts and the renewal of Jewish law and ethics. Her essay "The Jew Who Wasn't There," first published in 1971, is generally considered the first piece of Jewish feminist theology. She is the author of Engendering Judaism which won the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought. She is the first female theologian to win this award.
Adler’s academic credentials include a PhD in Religion and Social Ethics from the University of Southern California with a conjoint certificate in Judaica from Hebrew Union College, an M.A. in English Literature from Northwestern University, and a Masters degree in Social Work from the University of Minnesota. She was ordained as a rabbi by Hebrew Union College in Spring 2012.

Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove reflects on prayer as a constitutive part of his identity, and community as a constitutive part of prayer.

Rabbi Elliot J. Cosgrove, Ph.D., a leading voice in the Conservative Movement, began his tenure at Park Avenue Synagogue in 2008. Ordained at The Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Cosgrove earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His dissertation on Rabbi Louis Jacobs, a leading Anglo-Jewish theologian of the 20th century, reflects his passion for the intersection of Jewish scholarship and faith. Rabbi Cosgrove is the author of five collections of selected sermons, including Hineni (2012), and A Place to Lodge (2013). He is also the editor of Jewish Theology in Our Time: A New Generation Explores the Foundations and Future of Jewish Belief (Jewish Lights), hailed as a provocative and inspiring collection of essays by leading rabbis and scholars.

​In addition, Rabbi Cosgrove sits on the Chancellor's Cabinet of JTS and on the Editorial Board of Conservative Judaism. A member of the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Assembly, he is also an officer of the New York Board of Rabbis and a member of the Board of UJA-Federation of New York. He serves as Rabbinical Advisor on Interfaith Affairs for the ADL and he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

​Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg, long time teacher with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, discusses the dynamic relationship between meditation, yearning and prayer in her practice.

​Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg is a Reconstructionist rabbi, educator, poet and nationally recognized pioneer in the field of Jewish mindfulness practice. A co-founder of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, Rabbi Peltz Weinberg has taught mindfulness meditation, yoga and Hasidic literature to hundreds of rabbis, cantors, and lay leaders. She has written extensively on a variety of subjects including Jewish spirituality, social justice, feminism and parenting. Her first book, Surprisingly Happy: An Atypical Religious Memoir, describes her remarkable life and spiritual quest in poetry, written prayers and meditation practices, along with a candid examination of her own struggles and ideas about family life and relationships.

We all know the importance of gratitude, but do we practice it? Cantor Ellen Dreskin ​speaks about starting the day with modeh ani, “I am thankful” and creating a daily gratitude practice.

Cantor Ellen Dreskin is a native Texan, a 1986 graduate of HUC-JIR School of Sacred Music, has a Master’s Degree in Jewish Communal Service from Brandeis University, and is the Coordinator of the new Cantorial Certification Program at the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music at HUC-JIR in New York. A frequent Scholar-in-Residence at synagogues and workshop/prayer leader at national conferences, Cantor Dreskin served as the Director of Programs for Synagogue 2000, a national, not-for-profit institute dedicated to revitalizing and re-energizing synagogue life in North America. 

She is married to Rabbi Billy Dreskin, and is extremely proud of their joint projects:  Katie, Jonah (z”l), and Aiden.

Many Jews do not believe that God personally decides who gets sick or when a loved one will pass away. Is prayer relevant for them when faced with pain and loss? Rabbi Laura Geller discusses prayer and healing for theological liberals.

Rabbi Laura Geller is the Senior Rabbi of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills. Prior to being chosen for this position in 1994, Rabbi Geller served 14 years as the Director of Hillel at the University of Southern California and then served as the Executive Director of the American Jewish Congress, Pacific Southwest Region. Among her accomplishments at AJCongress was the creation of the AJCongress Feminist Center, which became a model for other Jewish feminist projects around the county.  

Rabbi Geller has been named one of Newsweek’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis in America for two years in a row and received the California State Legislature’s Woman of the Year Award. She was also featured in the PBS Documentary called “Jewish Americans.”  Author of many articles in journals and books, she is a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post and served on the Editorial Board of “The Torah: A Woman's Commentary,” in which she has two essays. Rabbi Geller is a Fellow of the Corporation of Brown University from where she graduated in 1971. She was ordained by the Hebrew Union College in 1976, the third woman in the Reform Movement to become a rabbi.  She is married to Richard A. Siegel, and she is the mother of Joshua and Elana Goldstein and the step-mother of Andy and Ruth Siegel.

In this 90 second video, Rabbi David Wolpe ​considers the advantages of making prayer a regular practice, and shares the Kotzker rebbe's teaching on al levavecha, "on your hearts."

Rabbi David Wolpe discusses the effects of a regular prayer practice, and shares the Kotzker rebbe's teaching on al levavecha, from the blessing after the Shema. Why does the Hebrew say on your hearts, rather than in?
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Named the most influential Rabbi in America by Newsweek Magazine and one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world by the Jerusalem Post, David Wolpe is the Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, California. He previously taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, Hunter College, and UCLA. Rabbi Wolpe regularly writes for The LA Times, the Washington Post’s On Faith website, The Huffington Post, and the New York Jewish Week, among others. He has appeared on the Today Show, Face the Nation, ABC This Morning, and CBS This Morning, and in series on PBS, A&E, the History channel, and the Discovery channel. Rabbi Wolpe is the author of eight books, including the national bestseller Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times. Rabbi Wolpe’s new book, titled David, the Divided Heart, will be available from Yale University Press in November 2014.

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​Rabbi Shawn Zevit explores the effects of listening to the prayers we pray.

​Rabbi Shawn Zevit (www.rabbizevit.com) is a spiritual director and trainer of Jewish clergy in spiritual direction, co-director with Rabbi Marcia Prager of the Award-Winning Davvenen Leaders Training Institute
(www.davvenenleadership.com), a recording and performing artist (www.cdbaby.com/Artisst/ShawnZevit) and has been an organizer for over twenty years of Jewish men's programming and retreats; and co-editor with Harry Brod of the just published Brother Keepers: New Perspectives in Jewish Masculinity (Men's Studies Press, 2010, www.mensstudies.com/content/H44L82/), as well as "Offerings of the Heart: Money and Values in Faith Community" (www.alban.org/rabbizevit/index.asp) and numerous publications on personal, interpersonal, communal and organizational life.