The Sacred Speaks
Join depth psychotherapist and Jungian scholar Dr. John W. Price in an ongoing exploration of the mysteries that stir beneath the surface of ordinary life. Through wide-ranging conversations with experts, artists, scholars, saints, and skeptics, this podcast uncovers the symbolic, spiritual, and psychological layers hidden in plain sight.
Rooted in the understanding that life itself initiates us, The Sacred Speaks explores how our experiences—grief, wonder, rupture, longing—are invitations to grow, transform, and show up more fully in the world. At its core, the project asks: What if consciousness is always speaking to us—through dreams, synchronicities, crises, or beauty—beckoning us into a deeper, more expansive relationship with ourselves and the mystery we live within?
The Sacred Speaks
18: The Divine, Mindfulness, & Interpretation. A conversation with Rabbi Ariel Sholklapper
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Rabbi Sholklapper may speak and read enough languages to make anyone jealous. This multi-lingual blessing allows him the unique gift of investigating ancient religious texts to deconstruct them and explore meaning lost over the passing of time and that has often been injected with interpretations based on ulterior motives. This fact makes him an exceptionally fun person with whom to share a coffee and conversation. One of the most influential and life-changing moments in Ariel’s life involved his experience of arriving on the scene as a first responder following a bomb exploding on a bus in Israel. This trauma sent him into enough of a blunted state of numbness that he began exploring meditation and mindfulness. He is now a teacher of both. Through this conversation, Ariel answers the question, “What is Judaism?” His answer: that each of us has a divine spark and our lives are about getting closer to that spark. The consequences of this understanding from his perspective is one of the goals of the work: becoming kinder to others, more compassionate, and also more settled, and in life. A necessary and honorable goal indeed. Bio:
Rabbi Ariel Sholklapper is a mindfulness practitioner who got his start under the guidance of Rabbis Jeff Roth, James Jacobson Maisels, and Joanna Katz in 2011. Since then he has attended, managed, and facilitated retreats and mindfulness meditation groups all over the world. He was recently appointed Director of the Jewish Mindfulness Center of Houston at Congregation Beth Yeshurun, the largest Conservative Jewish congregation in the United States. He earned a degree in philosophy and Jewish studies at UCLA, was ordained at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, and holds an MBA in nonprofit management.
Learn more about this project at:
www.thesacredspeaks.com
Instagram:
www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/
Twitter:
twitter.com/thesacredspeaks
Theme music provided by:
www.modernnationsmusic.com
Song of the week: Fireproof on Mingo Fishtrap’s album “On Time”
lyrics and music by Treson Scipio and Roger Blevins Jr.