Chant is a meditative practice that fully engages the body, heart and mind, and facilitates healing and expansion of consciousness. Rabbi Shefa Gold, beloved teacher of chant, Jewish mysticism, prayer and spirituality, guides you through this transformative spiritual practice as a way to unlock the power of sacred texts and take prayer and meditation into the delight of your life. In this evening of participatory practice, Rabbi Shefa will illuminate the benefits and blessings of chant and unlock deep wisdom buried in our sacred texts.

Location: Beth Tzedec Congregation (Hendeles Chapel), 1700 Bathurst St
Price: $10

Join Ha’Sadeh: Jewish Renewal Toronto for an ecstatic Kabbalat Shabbat led by Rabbi Shefa Gold—one of the most beloved voices in the Jewish Renewal movement and a visionary creator of sacred chant. Together, we’ll enter Shabbat as a lived, embodied experience: a journey through gates of holiness into expanded awareness, guided by ancient prayers (tefillot) reawakened through melody, movement, and deep presence.

Ha’Sadeh’s Shabbat gatherings are alive with experimentation and possibility—rooted in tradition and uplifting feminist, embodied, nature-connected, G!d-expansive, queer, musical, and deeply spiritual expressions of Jewish life. Come as you are. Lounge on floor pillows or rise to move. Add your voice in harmony or rest in silence. Let yourself be carried by the rhythm of prayer—or dance if your spirit calls.

5:45 - Arrival and preparation for ritual
6:00 - Service: Together, we’ll enter Shabbat as a lived, embodied experience, a journey through gates of holiness into expanded awareness, guided by ancient prayers (tefillot) reawakened through melody, movement, and deep presence.
7:30 - Dinner: A delicious vegetarian and kosher-style communal meal.
8:00 - Workshop: Reb Shefa will teach her Eight Functions of Consciousness in a Spiritual Group, a training on how to participate fully in a spiritual service.
9:30 - Kibbitzing: Hang out with old friends and new connections (and help tidy up) until 11pm!

Location: Friends House, 60 Lowther Avenue
Price: $54 (sliding scale down to $0)

Join us for a Shabbat morning unlike any other, as we welcome Rabbi Shefa Gold into the heart of our community's weekly gathering.

Services begin at 10:00 AM. We encourage you to arrive a little early, so we can gently settle in and co-create the spiritual container together. Please register in advance, and if you’re able, consider contributing toward the cost of the event. Suggested donation: $18.

Congregation Darchei Noam is Toronto's only Reconstructionist synagogue, and our Shabbat morning services are built on the same foundations that animate Shefa's work: sacred sound, embodied prayer, and the conviction that spiritual practice is meant to crack us open rather than close us down. We pray from Kol Haneshamah, the Reconstructionist siddur, with joyful singing accompanied by instruments, moments of genuine contemplative stillness, and a d'var Torah rooted in honest engagement with our tradition.

Shefa's presence will weave through our morning, bringing the transformative power of Hebrew chant into a living, breathing community at worship. Whether you are a longtime chanter or brand new to this practice, whether you have davened every Shabbat of your life or this is your first time in a synagogue in years, you will find a place here.

Stay after the service for our communal Kiddush lunch, where the conversation, the connection, and the singing tend to continue well past noon.

The service will also be available via Zoom for those joining from a distance.

Location: Darchei Noam, 864 Sheppard Avenue West
Price: Free (Suggested donation of $18 if you are able)

When it came time to decide which of our holy texts to retain in our canon, Rabbi Akiva spoke for The Song of Songs. “The whole Torah is Holy,” he said,” but The Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies.” He added that “had the Torah not been given, we could live our lives by The Song of Songs.” Through chanting and meditation, internationally acclaimed teacher, composer and spiritual guide Rabbi Shefa Gold will explore the Love essence within Shir HaShirim that goes beyond the sentimental or romantic: this love reveals the beauty that is everywhere hidden in Nature, in relationships and in the depths of our hearts. At the conclusion of the session, participants will join in a chant-based Havdalah ceremony.

Location: Miles Nadal JCC, Room 318, 750 Spadina Avenue
Price: $36

On the Path of Love, we are inspired to receive the vast storehouse of spiritual tools that can help us heal, become whole, generous and connected to ourselves, and to all of Creation. In that remembrance of connection, love flourishes. There are so many challenges to love that we must meet.

The Psalms are an ancient treasure that must be excavated, refined, polished and made useful in meeting the challenges of our day. On this retreat of deep inquiry and profound celebration we will journey through eight themes that represent the means by which we meet those challenges on the path of Love:

Gratefulness, Praise, Lament, Supplication, Exaltation, Revelation, Comfort and Encouragement.

We’ll use the Psalms to explore these pathways, opening to the magic and the medicine of our inheritance.

Location: First Narayever Congregation, 187 Brunswick Avenue
Price: Pay-What-You-Can ($18/person suggested; $36/person supports a participant who would benefit from subsidized costs)