To create a global community of dreamers focused on tikkun atzmi and tikkun olam, healing ourselves and our world.
MISSION
To embrace dream wisdom as a fundamental pillar of Jewish spirituality and impart dream awareness as a spiritual practice for all.
VALUES
We seek to manifest our vision and mission guided by our values.
Dreams strengthen the spiritual seeker and houses of worship, nurture personal growth, and empower communities – all values of today’s Jewish institutions. JASD aims to re-instill appreciation of dreams to synagogue services and individual and communal Jewish life by empowering the affiliated and unaffiliated to call on the power of dreams in all aspects of life.
We explore the potency of Jewish and interfaith communities sharing dreams, and draw upon the positive insights and actions flowing from attention to our dreams.
JASD emphasizes the educational rather than the psychological aspects of dreams, the transformational rather than the therapeutic, and the sacred rather than the scientific.
JASD programs and publications dispel the notion propagated in traditional texts that it is mostly men, prophets, and royalty who receive Divine guidance and recognize Divine will. JASD will teach how the sage wisdom of dreams is available to each and every person. Dreams enable all of us to expand our potential, experience spiritual growth, and foster the common good through the guiding, protective, healing, and transformative power of dream
PROGRAMS
JASD integrates dream awareness into Jewish life through presentations, programs, and classes at synagogues, Jewish Centers, campus Hillel chapters, Sisterhoods, youth groups, retreats, and interfaith events.
The COVID-19 pandemic, requiring social distancing and other measures as of March, 2020 has, for the foreseeable future, required shifting many of our programs to virtual and other digital modalities.
JASD strives to accomplish our mission by:
• Publishing a textbook and a prayerbook filled with historical, liturgical, and literary dream references to be a part of JASD services and other religious and public activities. The publications will educate both those familiar and unfamiliar with dreams and dreaming. We will teach dream journaling and sharing as well as how to remember, understand, listen to, and integrate dream lessons for positive personal and social change.
* Facilitating dream (Chalom) circles as integral parts of individual, synagogue, and communal life. JASD will create a protocol for these sacred circles that may be offered by houses of worship, organizations, and groups.
*Establishing programs to train facilitators.
• Reviving the traditional ritual, the Amelioration of Dreams, to synagogue services and community life. The Talmudic practice (Talmud Bavli, Berakhot 55b) laces biblical accounts and prayer with the healing power of dreams. The dreamer is called to present the dream before three witnesses, who listen and respond.
• Writing a regular column for mainstream Jewish publications on dreams and dreaming. We recall dreams relating to Torah portions, dreams on the Sabbath holding special significance, and dreams infusing creative problem-solving, from the personal to the practical.
• Maintaining a website connecting a global community of dreamers toward evincing healing and peace.
INTERFAITH ASPECTS
Dreams are integral to all religions of the world. Dreams fill the holy books of the major monotheistic faiths–Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The interfaith aspect of JASD expands the historical roots of dreams in world religions and enhances the power of dreams within and among individual faiths.
JASD provides the opportunity for interfaith sharing of dreams as paths toward striving together to inspire well-being and peace in the home, community, and world.
ENVISIONING
What if we in the Jewish community and beyond shared our dreams with each other? What insights might flow from calling upon our nocturnal messages? How might we, individually and communally, use our dreams for healing our selves and our world?
