SHABBATONS
Nitzotzot: Gathering the Sparks of Renewal
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Regional Renewal Shabbaton
July 24–26
Southern Oregon
There has been a lot to carry these days. The news cycle rarely lets up, the Jewish world feels more fractured than you wish it did, and you have been holding all of it in ways you do not always have words for. Maybe you know the quiet mismatch of walking into Jewish spaces where you end up leaving parts of yourself at the door—your questions, your politics, your queerness, your curiosity, your longing for something deeper, your full-throated song. Maybe you are the one in your circle who still cares about Jewish life and sometimes wishes you had more company in that. Maybe you just need a real Shabbat, the kind that actually feels like one.
If any of that lands, keep reading, because this is for you.
That turning is what this Shabbaton is built for.
Here is what most of us do not fully appreciate about this particular moment in the Jewish year.
The weekend of July 24–26 is not an ordinary Shabbat. It is Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of Comfort, which arrives each year on the heels of Tisha b’Av—the summer day of mourning when Jews around the world remember the destruction of the ancient Temples in Jerusalem. On Shabbat Nachamu, our tradition makes a dramatic pivot: from three weeks of grief into seven weeks of consolation that carry us all the way to Rosh Hashanah.
The name of this Shabbat comes from the opening words of the prophet Isaiah: “Nachamu, nachamu ami”, Comfort, comfort my people. The sages noticed that the word comes to us doubled, and they taught that real comfort is never a one-time event. It is meant to be insisted upon, repeated, sung, and shared between people over time. Historically, Jewish communities have treated Shabbat Nachamu almost like a festival, with extra celebration, extra singing, and extra togetherness, because the tradition understands that after any season of heaviness, we are ready to turn toward one another again.
Together, we will have three days in the Pacific Northwest where you will finally get to exhale.
Nitzotzot is a Hebrew word meaning sparks. It comes from a teaching of the 16th-century mystic known as the Ari, who taught that holy sparks lie scattered throughout creation, waiting to be gathered and lifted back toward their source. In this worldview, the world is repaired not by any one person doing it alone, but by each of us recognizing the spark we carry, bringing it into the circle, and weaving the circle together strand by strand.
Your spark is needed here, and so are your questioning, your joy, your grief, your uncertainty, and your voice.
Across one Shabbat together, you will welcome Shabbat Nachamu in community through soulful Kabbalat Shabbat, with prayer and song that make room for both the ache and the salve, davenning in a way that is embodied and genuinely prayed together. You will sit with others who are carrying what you are carrying. Most importantly, you will actually rest, in the way that Shabbat was designed for and that most of us have forgotten is possible.
By the time you journey to your next destination on Sunday, you will feel more anchored in a tradition that has been renewing itself for thousands of years and still has something to say to this moment. You will feel connected to a regional community of Renewal-oriented Jews and seekers you can keep showing up for long after Havdalah. You will feel softer around the edges, more like yourself, carried by something larger. Most of all, you will have remembered that renewal is not something you manufacture privately, but something a people does together, strand by strand, week by week, until the circle holds.
This Shabbaton is for you if any of the following describes you.
You are Jewish and looking for your people on the west coast, or want to explore the beauty of the region; you are Jewish-curious, Jewish-returning, or in the middle of conversion. You are a Jew of color, or looking for community in the Jewish world. You are a rabbi, cantor, rabbinic chaplain, educator, or lay leader who spends all year holding others and needs somewhere to be held yourself. You are queer, trans, interfaith-partnered, a seeker, a skeptic, a mystic, an elder, or a parent who has not had a real Shabbat in years. You are in need of good company.
You do not need to read Hebrew, know the liturgy, or have done anything like this before. You do not need to be sure what you believe. You just need to show up.
