This pedagogy explores the ritual of handwashing – Netiylat Yadaim – through the lens of dance/movement education in order to highlight three elements: The purifying and cleansing aspects of the ritual, the spiritual connection to water, and the awareness and healing potential of our hands.
January 2023
A Pedagogy of Cleansing: How Purifying and “Lifting” the Hands is Connected to Wellbeing
The ritual of handwashing - Netiylat Yadaim - through the lens of dance/movement education
Rabbi Daniel Brenner works as the chief of education for Moving Traditions and has spent the last decade training rabbis, cantors, camp directors, and Jewish educators to utilize modalities from social-emotional learning, positive youth development, comprehensive sexuality education, and empowerment self-defense in their work with preteens, teens, and their parents. Brenner earned a BA in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin, was granted a rabbinic title by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and completed a post-graduate fellowship with Rabbi Yitz Greenberg. Daniel was once described by the cultural arts editor of the New York Times as a “rabbi, storyteller, aerobics instructor” and his great joy is bringing his artistic spirit as a dancer, choreographer, musician, playwright, poet, filmmaker, and storyteller into dialogue with Jewish rituals, texts, and pedagogies. He and his beloved, Dr. Lisa Brenner, can be spotted dog-walking in Montclair, New Jersey, often discussing the latest exploits of their three young adult progeny - Noam, Jonah, and Adira.
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