In this episode, we welcome Rabbi Josh Feigelson, Ph.D., President & CEO at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality (ISJ). ISJ is a leading center for teaching traditional and contemporary Jewish spiritual practices that cultivate mindfulness.
Rabbi Feigelson explores what it means to live intentionally through values-based practice—whether through meditation, movement, or other forms of mindful awareness. He also reflects on how the ISJ has evolved and remained resilient through periods of profound global change.
Release date: 6/12/26
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This guidebook is about six words and the silence around them. The Shema is often called the central declaration of Jewish life, and here is the remarkable thing about it: it is not addressed to God. It is addressed to us. It does not ask us to believe anything, perform anything, or prove anything. It asks us to listen.
In the pages that follow, we take the Shema apart word by word, try on different translations, trace a short history of Jewish meditation, and learn a gentle evening practice: saying the Shema at the edge of sleep, the way Jews have done for many centuries.
Explore on your own or with someone you love. The only skill this practice asks of you is one you have been using since before you were born: listening.
President & CEO at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality
Rabbi Josh Feigelson is President & CEO of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality (IJS). He was the Hillel Rabbi at Northwestern University for 6 years, from 2005-2011. In 2016, he founded and served as Executive Director of Ask Big Questions, a national Hillel International initiative promoting civic conversation across lines of difference on college campuses, which won the inaugural Lippman-Kanfer Prize for Applied Jewish Wisdom in 2016. From 2017–2019, he served as the first non-Christian Dean of Students in the history of the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is also a Senior Fellow at The iCenter for Israel Education and President of Big Questions Associates, LLC, a consulting practice supporting nonprofit and educational leaders.
Josh is the author of Eternal Questions: Reflections, Conversations, and Jewish Mindfulness Practices for the Weekly Torah Portion and has published widely in academic and popular venues. He also hosts the podcast Soulful Jewish Living: Mindful Practices for Every Day, co-produced by Unpacked and IJS.
He grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan and earned a B.A. in music from Yale University, a rabbinic ordination from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School, and a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Northwestern University, where he wrote his dissertation on the work of Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg. He lives in Skokie, Illinois with his wife Natalie and their three sons.
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