Schedule and Offerings
Join some of our amazing teachers for our Tikkun Leyl Shavuot all night learning Saturday night:
- Rabbi SaraLeya Schley
- Rabbi Daniel Lev
- Rabbi Jim Brandt
- Estelle Frankel
- Rabbi David Dunn Baer from Nehirim
- Dawn Kepler from Building Jewish Bridges
And on Sunday Join us For an Afternoon of Ancient Technology Skill Share:
- Learn to make felted objects from raw wool
- Cook a meal for the community over the fire
- Learn to make fire from friction
- Weave baskets from cattail reeds
- Learn to make a flexible woven basket from wool and silk
- And more…
Would you like to offer something to the community?
In the Wilderne
ss Torah tradition of collaboration and co-creation, we invite you to consider offering a class, workshop, experience, music, teaching etc. to the Shavuot on the Mountain Community. All participants are invited to consider offering something you are passionate about! If you have something you’d like to offer please read below for some guiding principles and a form to submit your proposal.
We are looking for offerings in the following places in the schedule:
Saturday night Tikkun Layl Shavuot (all night learning session): There are four one hour learning periods thorughout the night. We like to balance each learning slot with options for body, mind, and spirit. See below for classes from last year and propose one for this year!
Sunday afternoon Skill Share Fair: This is a time to share physical, nature-based, wilderness, or 
homesteading skills with the community. What can you make from scratch, or what can you empower others to learn to do for themselves? Propose an offering and share your skills!
For any offering we would like you to keep in mind the following:
- If your offering is a class for the Tikkun Leyl (all night study session) please design it so that it is relevant to the theme of Shavuot and Revelation (let us know if you need help with that)
- Please provide all materials (such as copies) you will need for your offering. It’s hard to know how many people will attend each offering. You should expect between 5 and 20 people at your offering. Keep in mind not everyone attends offerings and your offering is occurring concurrently with other offerings.
- In an effort to build community and be as inclusive as possible, please take time at the beginning of your session to introduce yourself and have the group introduce themselves, perhaps asking prompting questions so folks can get to know each other before the session begins.
- Please make your offering as interactive as possible. There should be some time for discussion or participation from the group. Try to go for the 50/50 rule, creating space for students to have space to talk/discuss at least 50% of the time.
Schedule for Shavuot 2012
Friday May 25th
3-6:00pm Registration and Set Up Camp
5:30 Opening Circle
6 Shabbat services
7:30 Dinner
Saturday May 26th
7:30-8:30am Morning Yoga/Hike
8:00-10:00 Breakfast
10:00-12:00 Options for Shabbat Services (hike, musical, traditional)
12:00-2:00pm Picnic Lunch (bring your own)
2:00-5:00 Open time for Relaxation or Nature Connection Activities: Join one of our experienced instructors and go on an adventure into the woods to learn how to walk softly on the earth, open up your senses, and find more harmony with the natural world around you
5:30-7:30 Dinner
8:00 Havdallah and end of Shabbat and beginning of Shavuot celebration
Saturday May 26th until Sunday at Dawn:
10:00pm First offerings slot (see below for sample offerings from last year)
12:00am Midnight Ritual
1:30am Third offerings slot
3:00am Fourth offerings slot
4:30am Fifth offerings slot
6:00am Sunrise Bird watching walk
Sunday: May 27th
7:00-8:00 Morning Prayer/Yoga
8:00-11:30 Breakfast
12:00-2:00pm Picnic Lunch (bring your own)
1:30-5:00 Skill Share Fair: Learn how to weave a basket, dye fabrics with natural dyes, make a fermented sauerkraut, and other skills for the home and wilderness!
6:00 Dinner
8:00 Musical Bonfire, Option to go on a night hike
Monday: May 28th
7:30-8:30 Morning Prayer/Yoga
8:00 Breakfast
10:00-11:00 Closing Circle
11:00-12:30 Clean up in Crews
Program Offerings
From Shavuot on the Mountain 2011
All Night Study Tikkun Leyl
Hitbodedut, Talking with G-d in the Woods, and Reb Nachman On How to Get Real w Rabbi Daniel Lev
We’ll learn from Reb Nachman, an eighteenth century mystic master who took some of the moralistic pronouncements of the early talmudic rabbis and mystically twisted them into the deep, meditative wisdom and practice that attunes well with Earth-Based Jewish souls. We’ll have thet opportunity to both learn with our heads and our hearts.
Shavuot as the Eighth Day of Pesach: Harvesting the Bounties of Holiness w/ R. Chaya Gusfield
We will explore a teaching from the Slonimer Rebbe (also known as the Netivot Shalom) about Shavuot as the 8th day of Pesach. Through the 7 intervening Shabbatot from Pesach to Shavuot we prepare to receive Torah and harvest from our spiritual and physical journeys of the past 7 weeks. Through text study, sharing and discussion we discuss what it means to be at the “boundary of holiness” on this eighth day (the number beyond the physical world). Come learn this incredible text and share your personal experience.
The Book of Ruth: Shavuot, Generosity, and International Food Justice with Berger Jocelyn
In this interactive text-based discussion, we’ll study the Book of Ruth to explore the journey from charity and dependency to dignity and sustainability. Using an American Jewish World Service global justice lens, we’ll compare food aid in Ruth’s time and our own. Join us to explore how we can apply Jewish values to stand in solidarity and unity with our global village.
Sow Your Mind with Rabbi Jim Brandt
The un/ever-pronounceable Hebrew letter sequence, Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey, diagrams righteousness, justice, and creation. We will look at the power and the multiple meanings attributed to this expression of God, and reflect on how each of us experiences the Divine Presence. Using meditation and guided visualization, we will find our place in the diagram…and in the relationship as we prepare for Sinai”
Circle of Ruth with Miki Raver, author of Listen to Her Voice: Women of the Hebrew Bible
Connect with Ruth and Naomi as your spiritual guides through text study, guided meditation, movement and visualization. This is the tenth year that Miki has offered the Circle of Ruth on Shavuot ( the second year at Wilderness Torah). Other venues have included the Omega Institute, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center and Congregation Kol Shofar.
Circle of Memory with Debra Massey
As one of the 3 pilgrimage festivals, Shavuot includes an opportunity to remember the people in our lives who are no longer with us. In honor of Yizkor, we will gather together to share stories about people who have passed away and how they have touched our lives.
Learning about the ancient Israelite Incense Offering with Mallek Ryan
We will be burning all of the different incenses (frankincese, myhrr and more!) used in the ancient Temple of Jerusalem while looking at the texts and ideas that surround this holy offering for the community of Israel. We will understand the significance of the sense of smell in prayer and ancient Israelite ritual while asking what is the value of experiencing different creative ways to pray that has been lost over the ages.
Moving Through the Sefirot towards Revelation with Sarai Shapiro
Through embodied movement, prayer and music we will move through the experience of the directions and the 7 sefirot or attributes of how g-d is expressed in the human form. Allow your body’s wisdom to be the vehicle that allows you to be present to what is right now. From there allow the veils between the worlds to be thinned.
Organic Divinity: Experiencing YHWH Through Principles of Ecology with Alon Weinberg
This is an effort to understand G!D through the uber-material: Earth and Body, while letting go of concepts that hold us back from this. Using Fritjof Capra’s 6 or 8 principles of ecology, and breathing and moving a small bit, we will try to understand this great being from within it and within our bodies and within our extended body Earth.
Receiving and Giving Holy Blessings with Rich Robinson
As we are open to receive on Shavuot we will learn how to give and receive blessings for each other. This is a co-creative experience of discovering what each person needs to receive in the moment.
Revelation in the Night with Zelig Golden
Something magical happens in the pre-dawn hours. Reb Nachman, the great Chasidic master, knew this and sent his students out after midnight night to pray alone in the dark. Join Zelig for a guided journey into the dark and drink deeply of this magic revelation moment.
Pre-Dawn Bird Sit with Fred Werner and Zelig Golden
As the dawn approaches, the birds sing in thanksgiving for new day. This will be a time pre-dawn to bring our senses to the winged ones and become attuned to their language and song. Fred and Zelig will help us identify particular bird songs and signs and share how the birds can help us to become more aware and connected to all of creation.
