Introducing RUACH Community Health

We know our tradition has tools for radiant health. And we know that of the millions of Jews in this country, across the denominational landscape (including the unaffiliated and disaffected), a great number would welcome the chance to feel more vital in their bodies and more at ease in their minds. The question is: how do we build Beit Neshama, a new kind of Jewish space, in a way that lifts our spirits while honoring our roots?

Thankfully, our ancestors faced similar questions. Recounting the history of the Amidah, the heart of Jewish prayer, the Talmud asks whether the blessings grew out of historical roots, from the time of Abraham and Sarah, or whether they were a novel custom, created after the Romans destroyed the Temple. The Amidah: inherited, or new?

The answer — both. “The ancestors established the blessings, and the rabbis put them in the place of Temple offerings” (Berakhot 26b). This teaches: deep roots enabled the rabbis to draw new life — to revitalize tradition — from the powerful winds of change.

Surely, today’s world calls out for the same creativity. From polarization to environmental alarm, we are witnessing change at a scale unprecedented in living memory. To weather these storms with skill, we need a Judaism that cares for the entirety of our being. A Judaism that gives people the space needed to breathe deeply, repeatedly — to feel held, secure, and open to new possibility. As far back as the Garden of Eden, humans were animated by the breath. Or, as the Talmud says: “Just as the Holy One fills the whole world, so the neshama breath-spirit fills the whole body.” Now it’s time for the breath, observed intentionally across traditions, named as “God’s candle” in the Hebrew Bible, to meet the Amidah in the place of Temple offerings, at the center of Jewish life.

As we reanimate ancient tools for radiant health, RUACH is guided by the model of our ancestors, and by two core principles:

Rootedness in Tradition — Shorashim
Embracing Change —Ehyeh

• 40 teachers trained in RUACH’s 200hr curriculum.

• 3,000 participants (including 1,000 Jewish teens and young adults) engaged monthly in virtual or in-person “Beit Neshama” (“House of Breath”) studio space.

• 2 brick-and-mortar studios are open for practice (IKAR and HC), with 4 more studios in development in other Jewishly concentrated cities.

• 8 “pop-up Beit Neshama” locations at partner organizations nationally.

• 80% financial self-sufficiency through studio revenue.

• 5 academic papers published on the mind-body connection in Jewish life.

Matia Angelou, Rabbinic Pastor
Beit Neshama Instructor

Matia Rania Angelou is a poet, ritual artist, healer, and teacher of meditative chant. A graduate of the Indigo River SpiritSong Teacher Training program, and certified practitioner of Applied Resonance Therapy, she blends these healing techniques with Jewish meditation to create vibrational immersion for healing through sound. Matia was co-founder of the Jewish Healing Center of New England. She has helped organize Jewish healing conferences and healing services at local synagogues, and has participated as an energy and sound healer for patients in hospitals and in their homes. Matia will be leading contemplative practices and healing circles at Beit Neshama.

Julie Leavitt, DMin, BC-DMT, LMHC
Beit Neshama Instructor

Julie Leavitt teaches movement as expression of emotion and devotion, creating time and space for holy listening inside the sacred vessel of our bodies. She received the title of Doctor of Ministry from the Graduate Theological Foundation in 2014, with a doctoral project entitled, “Jewish Spiritual Direction and Embodied Spirituality.” Alongside her work as a body-centered psychotherapist, she has taught Movement as a Spiritual Practice locally and nationally in synagogues, retreat centers, conferences, and universities. Julie will be leading movement practices at Beit Neshama.

Ellen Meyers
Administrative Consultant

Ellen is a tree-hugging, yoga-loving, Spirit-centered gardener who has decades of professional experience in business administration and event planning. In 2023 she completed a 16-year stint as the Programs and Communications Director for the Newton Free Library during which time she chaired the library’s Art Committee, overseeing selection of artists and installation of over 400 individual shows. She also produced and hosted Books and Beyond, an award-winning community cable access TV show, for thirteen years. Deeply guided by Jewish values in the Renewal tradition, Ellen is thrilled to be joining the RUACH team as our Administrative Consultant. She is currently immersed in a year-long intensive training course in Eden Energy Medicine Fundamentals, which she will complete in the spring of 2024. She believes in the value of building loving community as a means to support individuals and contribute to societal change in service to the greater good.

Evelyn “Ducky” Punch, MSc.
Beit Neshama Instructor and Director of Programming

 Evelyn (Ducky) Punch is a born-and-raised, pasture-grazed Irish lady who grew up without a movement studio in sight. Blessed with the great outdoors as a playground, her love and awe of nature developed into a fascination with the majesty of the human form. After completing degrees in biochemistry and neuroscience, she followed the trail to Yoga, which revealed a peaceful state of being. She soon stepped into teaching and never looked back — and now, more than twenty years later, she’s grateful to be living the joy that is the practice, the learning, the healing, the revelations and ultimately the transformation. Ducky teaches through an anatomical lens, with the intention to create a safe and comfortable, lighthearted yet deeply focused environment for students to explore their inner world. Ducky will be offering Yoga classes at Beit Neshama, in addition to serving as RUACH Co-Director.

Yaakov S. Ginsberg-Schreck
Director of Business & Partnerships 

Yaakov is a ritualist academic interested in the intersection of community organizing, Torah, and the neshama breath-spirit. He graduated magna cum laude from Yale with a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies, concentrating in cultural theory, and in 2019 completed his 200-hour Yoga teacher training in Los Angeles (One Down Dog Studios) under Ducky Punch’s mentorship. There with LA’s palms he learned that breath is spirit, across traditions, and that none other than our teacher Moses organized the people around expansion of the breath. Now in his fourth year of training in Hebrew College’s rabbinical program, Yaakov splits his time between Hebrew College’s Beit Midrash, in his student-cap, and helping build Beit Neshama in the tichel-headwrap of Co-Director of RUACH.

RUACH is proud to announce two new partnerships with Jewish organizations nationally.

Temple Israel of Boston
Year of Pilot Partnership Programming, “Zmanei Nefesh: Seasons of the Soul”
Generating Scalable Templates for Rosh Chodesh (New Moon) and Sun Cycle gatherings

University of Arizona Hillel Foundation
“Pop-Up Beit Neshama”
Designing Short-Term, High-Quality Jewish Studio Space

Rabbi Adina Allen
Co-Founder & Creative Director, Jewish Studio Project

Rabbi Laura Bellows
Director of Spiritual Activism and Education, Dayenu

Rabbi Batya Ellinoy
Upper School Director, Temple Beth Elohim, Wellesley, MA and Somatic Jewish Educator

Rabbi Shoshana Friedman
Director, Artist Beit Midrash of Hebrew College & Jewish Arts Collaborative (JArts), and Rabbinic Ambassador, Dayenu

Rabbi David Kasher
Associate Rabbi, IKAR

Rabbi Daniel Klein
Dean of Students, Hebrew College

Rabbi Adam Lavitt
Director of Program Design and Facilitation, Jewish Studio Project