Rabbi Dr. Tirzah Firestone – Ancestral Wisdom for Walking the Path of the Holy Being 2022

During this deeply spiritual and highly experiential program, you’ll:

• Step onto a path to seed the world with hope, goodness, and service by reconnecting to your highest self and sacred purpose through ancestral healing and ancient spiritual teachings and their experiential methodologies
• Immerse yourself in the texts and practices of 2 ancient traditions — Judaism and Tibetan Buddhism
• Be guided through meditations and visualizations to better equip yourself on your path of personal transformation and the illumination of others
• Discover how ancient traditions are being reimagined for a post-patriarchal world and relevance in our times
• Experience rituals to open the door to the ancestral realm and call in the righteous souls in your own lineage… as well as the master souls who’ll be your allies on the journey
• Receive tools to cultivate compassion and a loving heart
• Explore your own shadow, our culture’s collective darkness, and intergenerational trauma residues… and experience techniques to transmute their impact
• Learn how to protect yourself from the evil eye and hold a good eye for the world
• Learn how to use your own spiritual protections to deflect negative projections — with amulets, talismans, God names, and more
• Understand the importance of sacred community and soul friendships as you do the work of Tikkun Olam — repairing the world without focusing on personal fame or fortune
• And much more…

What would it look like to cultivate a life infused with the values of the Tzaddik and Bodhisattva — free from patriarchal constraints and essentialist religious norms in today’s world?

In this opening session, Rabbi Tirzah provides an overview of the journey ahead and shares about the foundational concepts you’ll be learning throughout the course. You’ll be exploring the distinct flavors of two ancient traditions — Judaism and Buddhism — and their guidance for living the most meaningful, light-filled life.

Rabbi Tirzah shares about the prototypical sacred beings in both Judaism and Buddhism, defines the terms Tzaddik (from Judaism) and Bodhisattva (from Buddhism) — both in a historical context and how they look in the 21st century — and relay stories about each.

You’ll look at what these archetypes mean in their respective traditions and how we can transvalue their relevance for today, in this era of upheaval and uncertainty.

You’ll explore why the vast majority of Western Buddhists are Jewish (referring to themselves as Ju-Bu), and what it indicates as a cultural phenomenon.

And, Rabbi Tirzah will begin to juxtapose ancient texts — hundreds, even thousands of years old — from each tradition, and guide you in their rich, sacred practices and rituals.

In this module, you’ll:

• Experience a guided ritual to open the door to the ancestral realm and call in the righteous souls in your own lineage… as well as the master souls who’ll be your allies on the journey
• Connect with this league of souls and ask to be initiated
• Hear the Parable of the Hidden Lake as a metaphor for our hidden wholeness, and be guided in the Being the Hidden Emerald Lake meditation
• Embark on 2 similar sitting practices — the Jewish Yishuv HaDa’at and the Buddhist Taming the Mind — to help you reboot when you’re thrown off your path
• Explore the Kabbalistic goal of Becoming a Dirah Batachtonim — creating a life for the Divine to live within and through you
• Look at 2 ancient texts, one from the Torah and one from Tibetan Buddhism, to discuss the meaning of “leaving home” as a spiritual metaphor

As soon as we embark on the path of evolution and commit to the light within and beyond us, the force of darkness often lets loose.

The Hasidic term tzinor refers to an agent of blessings to those in need (or, In Buddhist terms, one who “drives away the sorrows of the world”). When we become this conduit, we naturally constellate equal and opposite forces of darkness, and therefore need protection and a strong container.

Why does light have the tendency to illuminate shadows?

In this module, you’ll explore what pioneering psychiatrist Carl Jung termed the shadow and what Native Americans call wetiko, by first asking yourself what your own shadow is… and Rabbi Tirzah will share why the shadow is often difficult to see.

She’ll guide you in a ritual to invoke your own ancestors to uncover what trauma residue, shame, or cynicism may have occurred in your lineage that’s impeding you from venturing into the territory of the sacred.

You’ll call on these wise and well ancestors to help you reveal where your family traps and negative voices reside within you — and how they affect you as you embark on this holy journey — so you can start to avoid these entrapments.

Rabbi Tirzah will also define projection and scapegoating and discuss how these concepts show up in our society.

In this module, you’ll:

• Practice 3 important tools to help you reboot when you (inevitably) fall off the path of evolution
• Experience a ritual into the ancestral halls to invoke your own ancestors and explore family patterns and transmissions that might impede you on the spiritual path
• Learn about the Native American term wetiko and Carl Jung’s understanding of evil as God’s shadow side
• Explore what Buddhism calls the 3 Traps on the Path — attachment, aversion, and indifference — in the context of trauma residues
• Hear the story about how the Buddha dealt with evil

As you continue your exploration of the dance of light and darkness, Rabbi Tirzah shares why embarking on the path of the Tzaddik or Bodhisattva can be fraught with danger.

This deepening awareness requires maturity… because if we launch naively on this transformative journey, we can get bogged down by obstacles — both inner and outer.

In this module, you’ll dive into a depth-psychology orientation of the phenomenon referred to in many cultures and religious traditions around the world — the need for protection against what is called the evil eye.

Rabbi Tirzah relay teachings about the evil eye from around the world, and the meaning of cultural talismans such as rosaries, amulets, hamsa, yantras, and other protective artifacts… as well as the purpose of invoking angels and other iconic protectors from the Jewish and Buddhist traditions.

You’ll also learn how our negative thoughts and emotions — including envy, jealousy, unprocessed anger, and judgment — negatively affect others. And you’ll explore the remarkable power of blessing, extending good thoughts, and giving the benefit of the doubt to others.

In this module, you’ll:

• Be guided in a practice for holding a good eye for the world — opening it like an aperture of the heart
• Examine whether curses and spells are real
• Experience a meditation that takes you into your own good eye
• Learn how the Tzaddik extends the benefit of the doubt before judging
• Practice a Metta meditation (in Hebrew, Chesed)… first for self-blessing and self-protection, then for your family members — whether they’re beloved, troublesome, or both
• Discover how to use your own spiritual protections to deflect negative projections — using amulets, talismans, God names, and more
• Explore the Hasidic teaching of the innermost point of goodness in each human being (and how sometimes it may be eclipsed)

In this module, you’ll dive into the mystical teachings of Ayin — the Hebrew term for divine nothingness or ego dissolution — and compare it to the Buddhist term for emptiness, Sunyata.

Rabbi Tirzah shares stories about the Tzaddik who leaves fame and stature behind and takes to the road as a beggar… and how Sensei Bernie Glassman devised his Street Retreat for modern seekers to empathize with being homeless. This is the difficult art of becoming nothing/no one.

You’ll review your spiritual autobiography with an eye on Ayin to chart how these void or fallow seasons of your life are actually times of gestation — preparing you to bring forth something beyond your ego’s knowing or allowing. You’ll learn how these “mini-deaths” are essential to becoming an egoless agent of blessing.

Rabbi Tirzah walks you through some Jewish texts about projection and learning to correct people in our lives with kindness, once we’ve done our own work. You’ll begin the work of cultivating compassion for the most troublesome people in your life — family members.

And, she guides you in a ritual to call on the help of your wise and well ancestors and allies, to work with members of your family of origin.

You’ll glean an overview of your bloodline to understand both its beauties and banes, and you’ll inhabit the energy field of each member — whether beloved, troublesome, or both — to feel each ancestor from the inside, experience empathy in a new way, and extend blessings and compassion.

In this module, you’ll:

• Experience a guided ritual to engage with the members of your family of origin
• Learn the Hebrew term Mochin d’Gadlut and the Buddhist term big mind — both meaning expanded, transpersonal consciousness — and the Hebrew term Mochin d’Katnut, meaning small mind, personal awareness, or micro-focus
• Explore the importance of identifying and calling on the big and small mind, and being aware when you transition between the 2 as you navigate the world
• Chart your life map for seasons of Ayin — particularly the seasons of ego dissolution and regeneration
• Hear discussion on the maxim “Die before you die” and the spiritual art of dying
• Discover ways to not “take the bait” (as Pema Chodron says) of others’ projections or judgments… plus ways to do spiritual aikido and decline negative energy in order to maintain your equilibrium

In this module, you’ll begin to “try on” the orientation of the Tzaddik, who lives in the presence of a loving God at all times… and that of the Bodhisattva, who lives in the present.

You’ll explore the nondual Jewish mystical principle Ein Od Milvado, “There is nothing but God. There is only Oneness. Love is all there is.”

Rabbi Tirzah guides you to examine our internal theology and God imagery, which is often antiquated, inherited from our elders and subliminally interiorized when we were young. From this place, you’ll confront fear — Yir’ah, normally translated as Fear of God.

What does fear of God mean in a new paradigm in which we decline hierarchical dualism (the concept that God is king and we are lowly subjects)? And what does it mean in a new paradigm in which our intention is to affirm our Oneness?

In this session, you’ll embark on a journey from fear… to awe… to being in the presence of the numinous, the Great Mystery of Life — and feeling empowered with courage to live in the world with a spiritual ally.

In this module, you’ll:

• Experience a guided meditation to help you expand any outgrown theologies and antiquated God language that prevents you from moving forward on the path of the holy
• Learn the maxim and chant Ein Od Milvado — “There is nothing but God”
• Experience a guided meditation in which you’ll receive a segulah (talisman) to remind you of a new face of the Divine who’ll be your spiritual ally to partner with on your journey
• Hear discussion of the collective movement beyond antiquated patriarchal, gendered God images that may no longer serve you
• Discover your own resonant images and metaphors that match your current belief system
• Understand the connection between fear and awe and practice being seen with a loving gaze
• Hear the tale of the holy man who felt God’s eye watching

In this unique session, you’ll give yourself over to a sacred rite of passage to become initiated into the Tzaddik and Bodhisattva potency that’s alive within you… and call it out of its dormancy.

This ritual will include a series of guided meditations, calling you into the chambers of your ancestral halls and into a passage to the Godself that’s ensconced within you.

Bring your journal to record what you receive.

In this module, you’ll:

• Come away with blessings to go further than you’ve ever gone before on your spiritual path
• Be initiated into new states of your own being
• Have an unprecedented feeling of your own blossoming spiritual efficacy… and share your experience with others
• Choose your secret practice of gifting random acts of kindness in the world

In this closing module, you’ll come together with your co-participants to empower each other for the path ahead.

You’ll first process what happened for you in the Ritual Lab from the previous module, and what you were given as your talisman.

You’ll learn what it means to be an anonymous force for good in a world that may not notice, acknowledge, or value that goodness.

You’ll discuss the importance of sacred community — having soul friends who are similarly committed to the path of light.

Rabbi Tirzah will share an ancient Jewish concept that involves living and acting for the sake of the Shechinah, the Divine Feminine Presence, who’s alive and radically present among us at all times.

Finally, you’ll receive insights about the predictable challenges on the road ahead.

In this module, you’ll:

• Be guided on a journey to the future to see yourself living into the new aspect of yourself and being an open channel of compassion, wisdom, and goodness in the world
• Experience a final meditation to receive blessings and empowerment from the Chain of Souls who have initiated you
• Learn a tool to continue to increase and cultivate your compassion
• Reflect upon your own light, and receive affirmation for the sacred, secret practice that you’ve chosen as your anonymous gift to the world
• Learn the history of the Tzaddik Nistar (hidden Tzaddik) who willingly gave up fame to become a beggar or storyteller and to enact miracles with their mere presence
• Understand the importance of sacred community and soul friendships as you do the work of Tikkun Olam — repairing the world without fame or fortune