AJR holds a Retreat each fall that is required for its ordination students, with Master’s Degree and Gesher students warmly encouraged to attend. These gatherings offer students opportunities to build strong relationships within the AJR community, to meet new classmates, and to focus in-depth upon an experience or an area of learning that demands more attention than normal class sessions would allow. Retreats also offer students opportunities to interact informally with members of the AJR faculty, administration, and alumni.

In the middle of the spring trimester, we hold a week of intensive study required of our ordination students on a topic that is of deep concern to the contemporary Jewish community. Master’s Degree and Gesher students are warmly encouraged to attend as well.

Topics for this Intensive program, and for the Retreat, include such areas as practical professional development, outreach, the arts and religion, and contemporary spirituality.

The Mishkan is Equal to the Whole World: Biodiversity as a Model for Sacred Community
Ir Gedolah:
Strategies for Building Great Communities
Oz VeHedvah: Building Joyful Resilience in Ourselves and Our Communities
Mindfulness, Music Therapy, and the Brain Research that Speaks to Them Both
What Ought to Be Shall Be: “Carrying on Heschel’s Quest for Racial Justice”
Wondrous Paths: Exploring Spiritual Modes in a Jewish Context
Antisemitism: History, Context, and A Charge to the Clergy
B’Dibbur Ehad: Classical and Contemporary Approaches to Shabbat
Emor LeHokhmah Ahoti At (Proverbs 7:4): Applying Wisdom from Jewish Tradition to Gender
Kashrut: A Full Plate of Jewish Dietary Practices
Sephardic Jews: Tradition and Modernity
L’Hayyim: Living With Issues of Substance Abuse and Addiction
A Mixed Multitude: Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the American Jewish Community
Ba-shamayim Hi: Science and Religion Look at the Cosmos
Hesed Shel Emet: Meeting the Clergy Leadership Challenges of Today’s Jewish Funeral
Refuah Sh’leima: Physical and Spiritual Tools to Care for the Caregiver