Mindfulness Center Opens in Chicago
Bendat-Appell is director of the newly launched Center for Jewish Mindfulness in Chicago. The center introduces Buddhist-style meditation into Jewish practice and study; it encourages visitors to ‘live in the moment’ more fully.
Bendat-Appell explains:
“This is for anybody who has ever experienced a moment of clarity, feeling really connected and at home in the moment. This (center) is about developing that. I'm really looking for it to be a center that would have a lot of different offerings of how Jewish mindfulness could be applied toward intellectual, physical, emotional and social expressions of our human experience. … It's about working with our moment-to-moment experience. For mindfulness practice, we don't all need to be on the same page theologically.”
Bendat-Appell also has accepted a position with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality on the rabbinical faculty. He will be helping to “build expressions of mindfulness in Chicago and the Midwest.”
