Le’hitatef is an invitation to approach Jewish learning as an embodied experience. While traditional learning environments have been dominated by bodies that are male, or bodies that look or perform a certain way, Le’hitatef welcomes diverse bodies into Jewish educational spaces by cultivating an atmosphere of self-love in a ritual practice of “enveloping.”
Le’hitatef draws on Birkhot Ha’Shachar—the morning blessings—as a tool for cultivating mindful embodiment. Adapting the ritual gesture of le’hitatef— a self-embrace in the tallit—le’hitatef is a symbolic practice inviting learners to arrive in wholeness, self-compassion, and self-love.
We are emerging from a time of intense disembodiment, as so much of our learning and communal experiences shifted to online platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic. This resource presents a strategy to center the mind-body connection, and to heal the disjuncture of brain and body associated with both online life and more classical forms of Jewish learning.