Unlocking the Neuroprotective Potential of Jewish Education
On February 2025, Jewish LearningWorks gathered the Bay Area’s Jewish educator community for Soul FULL: Unlocking the Neuroprotective Potential of Jewish Education. This event featured keynote speaker Dr. Lisa Miller, renowned expert on the neuroscience of spirituality, and the exploration of a new paradigm for health, resilience and fulfillment.
Local Jewish educators gathered to learn from field experts and each other about how their work across all types of educational settings is essential to the development of resilience.
The Impact of Spirituality Across Life Stages
In the book “The Awakened Brain,” Dr. Miller writes that humans are universally equipped with a capacity for spirituality, and that our brains become more resilient and robust as a result of it. Her research combines cutting-edge science (from MRI studies to genetic research, epidemiology, and more) with on-the-ground application for people of all ages, and from all walks of life.
Our conversations at Soul FULL featured Miller’s scientific discovery and countercultural findings, as well as practical advice on concrete ways to access our innate spirituality, as we build lives of meaning and contribution.
About Our Keynote, Dr. Lisa Miller
Lisa Miller, Ph.D. is the author of the New York Times bestselling book “The Spiritual Child” and “The Awakened Brain.” She is also a professor in the Clinical Psychology Program at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Founder and Director of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute. Learn more about Dr. Lisa Miller.
Watch Highlights from the Day
A Gathering to Experiment, Learn & Grow
Following the keynote, participants deepened the conversation through expert-led small group sessions.
MEG ADLER
Torah and Oscillating Family Narratives
“Once upon a time there was a blossoming apple tree. Then a storm came and washed all the bounty away. And then the land dried and new sprouts with new promise broke through the Earth”. This is called an oscillating narrative. Oscillating family narratives are hugely helpful for building resilience! What better oscillating family is there than the Torah?! A family that has dealt with good times and bad times and good times again (and on and on). Together we’ll explore Torah as the story of a family that fights and forgives and prospers and loses it all only to build up again. This is the story of the Jewish people – our birthright is our resilience.
LEORA WOLF-PRUSAN
Grief FULL: Unlocking the Potential of Collective Grief, Recovery, and Healing-centered Work
Educators are often charged with supporting our students’ emotional tapestry: from trauma to grief to anxiety and toxic stress, we tend and hold others’ needs before our own. As we gather at Soul FULL, it will be the five-year marker of COVID in 2020. Societal and collective grief and loss continue to permeate our classrooms and school communities. Educators need and deserve spaces and places to metabolize and hold our grief, too. Grief demands we reimagine and renew: What ruptures need repairing? What chaos needs cohesion? What rituals might we adapt and adopt to center our own needs? Together, we create a reflective and generative space for us to name and normalize what we are holding and to explore ways in which we as leaders and educators can nourish our grief literacy so that we can experience healing-centered teaching conditions and cultures.
ARYA MARVAZY
Leading with Heart: Integrating Values and Vulnerability
This interactive workshop is designed to empower educators to identify and embrace their core values as they aim to lead with authentic vulnerability. Through reflective exercises, attendees will discover practical strategies for aligning their leadership style with their deepest values, and explore the power of leading with integrity, highlighting how openness fosters trust and drives meaningful connections. Join us to cultivate a more compassionate, aligned, and impactful approach to your leadership!
JOSH FELDMAN
Finding Glimmers
R&R: The Rest of Our Lives is focused on building and inspiring the future-of-work. We emerged amidst a growing trend for nonprofit professionals: the workplace isn’t working, folks are burning out, and we believe there is a better way. In this session, you will learn how to make your work day and work week feel more sustainable by finding your “glimmers” (opposite of triggers). You’ll walk away with a deeper understanding of the glimmer framework, and possible ways to integrate new healthy habits into your team’s work day/week. Note: This session will include a moving/walking experience that is built for all bodies and capabilities.
View the Event Coverage & Reflections
J. of Northern California
Neuroscience shows how spiritual experiences can help with the teen mental health crisis. By Alisha Pedowitz, Senior Educator.
eJewishPhilanthropy
It’s time for Jewish education to re-embrace the spiritual. By Dana Sheanin, CEO.
Adapting Podcast
What’s God got to do with it? Dana Sheanin, CEO, in conversation with David Bryfman, Jewish Education Project CEO.
View what Jewish educators said at Soul FULL
I am creating Jewish learning that is… You can add your word too.
With Gratitude to Our Generous Funders
