Mira Neshama

Dr. Mira Neshama is a Socio-anthropologist of Religions and Teacher of Jewish Spirituality. She obtained her PhD at the Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris while studying Torah at Drisha in New York as an Arts Fellow, and at Pardes in Jerusalem as a "European Leader Fellow" of the Yesod Foundation, where she obtained a certificate of "Jewish Experiential Educator".

Certified Teacher of Mindfulness (Mindfulness Training Institute) and "Jewish Mindfulness" (Institute for Jewish Spirituality), Full Awareness (Institute of Jewish Spirituality), and Yoga (Sira RYT 200), she received the Orthodox Equal Smikha from Pr. Rav Daniel Sperber at the Yeshiva Har'El, Jerusalem.

A regular contributor to Akadem, Tenou’a, Shofar and TaShma, she leads groups and retreats and collaborates with organizations such as Pardes, Or Ha Lev, Applied Jewish Spirituality, Moishe House, the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, the Romemu Yeshiva, and others.

Co-founder of Neshima, the first Jewish Meditation App, Mira teaches Torah, Hasidout, Jewish meditation and mindfulness internationally, online and in person.

In a tiny Shtetl lost somewhere Poland, Yitkik the Jew dreamed of a treasure.

Of course, he wasn't going to pay attention to it. But after the dream came back twice, three times, he decided to follow it, and he set off towards the big city.
But when he arrived..

The rest of the story can found in the Hasidic Legends of Elie Wiesel, or in Buber's Hasidic Tales.

But what matters to us is that our Yitzik suddenly understood, ran home,

and found the treasure right there, at home, under his oven...

A little more about my story

Like many Jews born between the 20th and the 21st century, this spiritual path began in Buddhism.

And like the Buddha, one might say that it began with the question of suffering.

I come from a human lineage where, on both sides, war and exile, communism and psychiatric hospital, violence and child abuse, have furrowed souls.

But mine, beyond yearning to be free from conditioning, was also looking for something else.

A deep intuition kept calling, whispering that there life was about something else, a treasure hidden behind the appearances of the everyday.

And what she could not find at first, at the age of eighteen, within an Orthodox Parisian Jewish scene which seemed from afar, as narrow minded as narrow hearted, she first found in dharma.

Yet the soul continued to call, so it came as close as it could, in a different way.

She chose the academic detour, and I became a socio-anthropologist of Judaism.
I wrote my Doctoral thesis at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris- on the "Jewish-Buddhists", of course.

Coming to Israel for the first time marked a turning point.

I discovered a Judaism alive there, and I got closer little by little.

But there was still another detour needed, and this one happened in the streets of Ashkenazic New York where I lived for three years, studying at Drisha - the first place where women found themselves with a Talmud in their hands in the seventies, while continuing to meditate in a zendo run by a New York Jewish psychoanalyst (Ordinary Mind Zendo), and engaging in training as a Jewish Mindfulness Teacher at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality (IJS), with whom I collaborate regularly today.

The divorce from Akiva (who is dear to me like a brother) brought me back to Paris, where I started teaching Hassidic meditation as part of the Neshama project founded in 2015.

Back to Jerusalem in 2016, for a Jewish Experiential Educator certificate at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, with whom I have collaborated since, and finally in 2018, making Aliyah.
From there everything came together: Egalitarian Orthodox smi'ha with Rav Professor Daniel Sperber at Beit Midrash Har'El, a Post-Doc at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, another, secular, training at the Mindfulness Training Institute (MTI), followed by Vinyasa Yoga Teacher training (200 RYT).

And over the years, as naturally as a sown land bears fruit, the development of collaborations, for the teaching of Torah and Jewish meditation, with American, European and Israeli organizations like Or Ha Lev, Applied Jewish Spirituality, Romemu Yeshiva, Moishe House Europe, Yesod, and many others.

Today, a project that has been close to my heart for a long time is coming to life: together with cofounder Matan Weil and a magnificent team, we are developing Neshima, the first Jewish meditation mobile application.

It has been now over ten years that I have been teaching, online and in person, Jewish wisdom texts and the spiritual practices of our tradition to English-speaking, French-speaking and Hebrew Speaking Jews around the world.

SIT WITH ME

You are welcome to join 'My Jewish Meditation' Group.
Open to every one (Terumah based), all sessions are recorded and once a week we meet for an hour long session that also includes teaching and Q&A.

As well as the 'Torah Insights' Group.
Open to every one (Terumah based), once a week we meet for an hour long session of Torah Study, but also Tanakh, Talmud, Kabbalah and Hassidut.

DISCOVER

Practicing together

Those who study and practice with me have in common that they too, have followed the call of their soul.

Some are in their twenties and others in their sixties. Some are religious and others are not. Some are knowledgeable in Torah and others are just discovering.

But they all have have chosen to seek in their heritage the meaning and the beauty that they somehow intuited was there, even if they had not yet had any confirmation of it.

They have all been driven by a tenacious intuition that there is incredible wisdom in Jewish Texts, deep meaning in Jewish Rituals, and true beauty in Jewish spiritual practices, and that all it takes is a little patience to discover them and let ourselves be transformed by them.

I am so glad you have found your way here.

I hope these ressources and offerings will help nourish your soul.

Like our Hasidic masters, I believe that the tikkun (repair) of the world start with the Tikkun of the individual.

And that's what I try to do through my teachings: helping everyone grow in wisdom, awareness and heart openness in the light of wisdom from the Jewish Tradition, so that we can bring about, through each of us, some healing in the world.

JOIN A CLASS

TESTIMONIES

Naomi D

Student of Private Spiritual Counseling

"Working with Mira is truly a deep breath. She has helped me find spaciousness both in myself and in my relationship to Judaism. Each time, she meets me where I am. Together, we ask big questions, explore prayer and ritual, and share stories and insights that I have been able to incorporate into my life daily. Mira has helped me strengthen and deepen my connection and commitment to myself, my practice, and my spirituality."

Mira has worked with

Meet the main Jewish organizations with which Mira has closely worked with:

Name

The meaning of mystery is what a man can experience with the greatest beauty and depth. To realize that behind every experience of life there is something which escapes our understanding, whose beauty and sublime reach us only indirectly, this is religiosity. In that sense, I am religious."

Albert Einstein

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