Institute for Jewish Spirituality

The JTA reported a study of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. It found that “younger Jews are more spiritually inclined than their forbears” and that “Orthodox Jews and Jews who have fewer than two Jewish parents score higher than other Jews on spirituality indexes.” The article mentioned the “Institute for Jewish Spirituality“.

One of IJS’ practices is text study:

“The texts that our participants study are selected primarily from the corpus of the Hasidic tradition. We have set this priority because we believe it supports contemplative study, and because it expresses a fundamental element of the spiritual orientation of the Institute….The second reason that we focus on Hasidic texts is their theological orientation. The central teaching of the Baal Shem Tov, even when filtered through that of the Maggid of Mezritch, is that the whole world is filled with God’s glory – literally.“