The Briya Project aims to provide a space where constituents cultivate a creative community to give and receive support, forming meaningful bonds that can continue to flourish. 

Within the American Jewish community today, many are examining their own relationships to trauma and to how being Jewish relates to their other identities, and are often doing this alone, without a home in Jewish communal life. 

We aim to heal the alienation that fractures us, by recognizing the yearning for connection underneath and designing and facilitating classes that create space and skill for connection – to our individual selves, to each other, and to Jewishness.  

As recent Pew data confirms, the formerly predominant modes of Jewish connection of prayer services and synagogue life do not meet the needs of many American Jews. Instead, many are connecting through informal, individualistic experiences that allow for cultural, and creative expression, such as celebrating holidays at home, and making traditional Jewish foods.

But Judaism is also so much about community, about participating in Jewish life together, helping each other hold on to what is meaningful in life, through what is meaningful in our traditions. And yet, nowadays, so many of us are creating meaning alone. So...

We need more ways to create and connect together.  

Connection to something greater than this moment or this place can be very grounding and healing for an individual. We recognize that to create change in ourselves, we go back to the beginning – to creation itself. The foundational stories of our civilization are about creation – of the natural world, of humanity, of the Jewish people, of our moral codes, how we coexist, how we care for one another. 

Briya workshops offer those who are interested, yearning, and ready to develop skills in creative expression, collaboration, and community building a place to come together to nurture their artistic voices – to write, to be heard, and to help others in doing the same.

And how do we do this?

We come together, to write, to share what we have created, to share reflections on what others have created.

We come together, to a sacred space that we co-create (on Zoom), we open with a ritual, we receive a prompt or a theme, and then alone, we write. After participants have had 20-50 minutes to be with their own words, stories, images, thoughts, and feelings, we come back together to share - to read our work and to receive feedback. And then, we close, at times with a ritual, at times simply wishing each other well.

And how do we share? In each workshop, we open the sharing portion with guidelines for how to share both our work, and our reflections on the work of others. So often, we are taught that we must show we are smarter than others, and so we may offer critiques to highlight our own intelligence, rather than the needs of the artist. In a Briya course, the goal of offering feedback is to help each artist as they continue to grow into their creative self. We ask the artist what they need from feedback, and we each endeavor to generously provide reflections that can help.

This is not always easy, and we may slip up, and that is fine.

We forgive each other - and ourselves! - because we know we are trying, and we will keep trying. This is how we grow individually and as a community. This is how we learn to create, and to offer and receive support.

We welcome all who are willing to try.

At the Briya Project, we welcome all comers: those who are curious, those who feel there is something in themselves to discover, those who are interested in connection, in exploring Jewish thought and ritual, and in experiencing and creating moments of peace and nurturing.

If you are so inclined, we hope you will give a Briya workshop a try!