Minyan Origins

The Aquarian Minyan was sparked into being in 1974 during a month-long Kabbalah workshop led by Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi z”l.  At the heart of his transmission was his vision of personal and collective transformation, renewal, paradigm shift – a new 'reality map’ encompassing the awareness that each of us together, all of creation, is unified in Creator.  God is in all, and all is God.

We now celebrate our first fifty years of Jewish Renewal, grounded in an ever evolving, universal expression of the Living Torah.  To make our vision real, we take on the mitzvah of refining ourselves personally and with others to deepen, expand, and actualize the shift in consciousness that will seed a sacred future in ourselves and in the generations that follow.

Seeding a Sacred Future Visioning:

Our world is in urgent need of healing, Tikkun. We are asking all to consider:

• How have the practices of the Aquarian Minyan and Jewish Renewal laid a foundation for the paradigm shift that can seed a sacred future and accelerate human evolution? 

• How can our actions now contribute to a world based on justice and love, harmony and peace among peoples and nature, expanding awareness, unity consciousness?

Reb Zalman has spoken of “Getting it Together, Together” – by aligning ourselves with the Holiness of the One, YHVH, and understanding the interconnectedness of all creation, it is possible for us to move forward together in the planetary shift towards sacred evolution.

In the Minyan, we’ve talked about pathways to achieve our visions:

• How acts of kindness, compassion, and justice arise from healed hearts (Tikkun HaLev, ) and a spirit of wholeness and peacefulness (Ruach Shalom).

• How renewal understanding of basic Jewish practice provides useful approaches:

T’fila - Connecting to Spirit, each in our own way, to harmonize with oneness, wholeness.

T’shuva - Refining ourselves through constant self-reflection to align with our pure core.

Tzedaka - Manifesting our transformative visions by our actions in the world

• We’ve mentioned the importance of nourishing and sustaining hope - that we are indeed in a period of transformation, metamorphosis, to a time of Renewal in human consciousness, and realizing that ultimately, love is the binding force holding our lives and world together, energizing our movement towards greater harmony and unity.