Cultivating everyday holy feminine experiences.
Developing new terrain in Denver's Jewish life.
Rahmana is made up of three different general activities throughout the year: communal singing, praying, and learning. And three times a year, we come together to combine the singing, praying, and learning for an immersive. Click on the photos below to get more information about each activity. Scroll down to read answers to more generalized questions and answers about Rahmana.
Singing |
Learning |
Praying |
Frequently Asked Questions about Rahmana
Who guides Rahmana?
Rabbi Hannah Kapnik Ashar is a graduate of Hadar’s Advanced Kollel, where she studied Jewish law and its development, prayer practice and the poetry of liturgy, and midrash (rabbinic exegesis). She is the Director of Faculty at the Bronfman Fellowship and served as Associate Spiritual Leader at Congregation Bonai Shalom for five years. She is an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, the Atra Fellowship for Rabbinic Entrepreneurship, the M2: Institute for Experiential Jewish Education's Senior Educators Cohort, the Ayeka Spiritual Educator Training, and Kenissa: Communities of Meaning Network. Hannah is a graduate of Wellesley college, a birth doula, and a mother of three girls.
Hannah is a mentor in Hadar's Sha”tz [prayer leader] Training and was recently invited to write the article on “Spirituality” in The Hartman Institute’s publication, Sources, edition on “Keywords in the Future of Jewish Life,” forthcoming in 2024.
Hannah is a mentor in Hadar's Sha”tz [prayer leader] Training and was recently invited to write the article on “Spirituality” in The Hartman Institute’s publication, Sources, edition on “Keywords in the Future of Jewish Life,” forthcoming in 2024.
Is Rahmana aligned with a certain sect of Judaism?
No. Rav Hannah is observant and trusts our tradition as a profound guide. Our programming reflects this, and is open to all who want to marinate in deep feminine Jewishness, and those curious to taste it.
Rahmana is a normative observant space, where woman are seen as full Jewish adults. When we have ten Jewish women assembled, we pray as a minyan, based on the extraordinary halachic work of Rabbi Hannah's teachers Rabbi Ethan Tucker and Rabbi Micha'el Rosenberg הן הם יודו or Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law.
An on-one-foot version of this model: the Mishna (early rabbinic legal poetry, consolidated c. 200 CE) has poetic groupings of people in society. One such grouping, often discussed in conjunction with conversation about time-bound mitzvot (minyan, tefilin,...), groups "women, slaves, and minors." Another similar grouping in the Mishna is "a deaf person, a developmentally delayed person, and a child." This group is not allowed to exempt others from mitzvot for which they are not obligated because of their status, like reading Megillah (Mishna Megillah 2:4). Rav Osher Weiss in his halachic collection Minchat Asher responds to visiting a school for the deaf, early in the development and standardization of sign language. He witnessed deaf people speaking sign language, and understood that deaf people could be fully thinking and understanding people, and he argued that deaf people should no longer have the same legal exemptions as children or people with significant cognitive disabilities. He argued that the Mishna was describing a societal category, not a biological category. Deaf people were not fundamentally not obligated, they were only not obligated in a world where, without sign language, it was not clear that they could understand or fulfill their obligation.
The grouping of women, slaves, and minors, also was a coherent group at one time: societal adjuncts. Women are not "biologically" exempt from time-bound mitzvot, but rather a social role of care-taker is exempt from time-bound mitzvot. And in the world we live in, where women are running for president, it's no longer aligned with proper Divine service for women to be exempt from the mitzvot to which Jewish adults are obligated. There are many further conversations that need to be had. Let's have them!
Rahmana is a normative observant space, where woman are seen as full Jewish adults. When we have ten Jewish women assembled, we pray as a minyan, based on the extraordinary halachic work of Rabbi Hannah's teachers Rabbi Ethan Tucker and Rabbi Micha'el Rosenberg הן הם יודו or Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law.
An on-one-foot version of this model: the Mishna (early rabbinic legal poetry, consolidated c. 200 CE) has poetic groupings of people in society. One such grouping, often discussed in conjunction with conversation about time-bound mitzvot (minyan, tefilin,...), groups "women, slaves, and minors." Another similar grouping in the Mishna is "a deaf person, a developmentally delayed person, and a child." This group is not allowed to exempt others from mitzvot for which they are not obligated because of their status, like reading Megillah (Mishna Megillah 2:4). Rav Osher Weiss in his halachic collection Minchat Asher responds to visiting a school for the deaf, early in the development and standardization of sign language. He witnessed deaf people speaking sign language, and understood that deaf people could be fully thinking and understanding people, and he argued that deaf people should no longer have the same legal exemptions as children or people with significant cognitive disabilities. He argued that the Mishna was describing a societal category, not a biological category. Deaf people were not fundamentally not obligated, they were only not obligated in a world where, without sign language, it was not clear that they could understand or fulfill their obligation.
The grouping of women, slaves, and minors, also was a coherent group at one time: societal adjuncts. Women are not "biologically" exempt from time-bound mitzvot, but rather a social role of care-taker is exempt from time-bound mitzvot. And in the world we live in, where women are running for president, it's no longer aligned with proper Divine service for women to be exempt from the mitzvot to which Jewish adults are obligated. There are many further conversations that need to be had. Let's have them!
What does Rahmana offer?
Rahmana is unlike anything else in Denver. Our Torah study includes learning prayer as poetry, and also teachings of great women sages. Our 3- to 5-part learning series allow an intimate community to develop as learners encounter the material and share their own insights. We hold monthly prayer gatherings in a backyard or home, with up to 30 women in attendance.
While we have programming throughout the year, our calendar is punctuated by three larger events, which we think of like the ancient “pilgrimage festivals”: a time to ingather, so we can feel the energy of a larger community. We bring guest collaborators into each of these pilgrimage festivals. These collaborators are women with tremendous gifts in spiritual facilitation: prayer, song, text study, dance, and/or art-making.
Over sixty women partook in our 2023 Sukkot Retreat (a local immersive), including an evening with 50 women gathered into a sukkah to sing together.
While we have programming throughout the year, our calendar is punctuated by three larger events, which we think of like the ancient “pilgrimage festivals”: a time to ingather, so we can feel the energy of a larger community. We bring guest collaborators into each of these pilgrimage festivals. These collaborators are women with tremendous gifts in spiritual facilitation: prayer, song, text study, dance, and/or art-making.
Over sixty women partook in our 2023 Sukkot Retreat (a local immersive), including an evening with 50 women gathered into a sukkah to sing together.
Where does Rahmana meet?
Rahmana regularly meets in homes and sometimes communal spaces around the Hilltop neighborhood in southeast Denver. After you register for a particular event, the location for that event will be shared with you.
What if I only want to do one piece of Rahmana --
like only singing, or only davening?
like only singing, or only davening?
Come only to those programs! Even within immersives, you can elect to come to only a portion of the programming. As with everything with Rahmana - where we love the model of the gift economy - you may contribute what you wish and in line with only coming to one part of the immersive.
When you join our mailing list, you can opt to only receive emails that include particular genres of programs (ie evenings of song).
When you join our mailing list, you can opt to only receive emails that include particular genres of programs (ie evenings of song).
I don't do much in the Jewish community right now. Will I fit in?
If you want a space that is deep and nourishing and feminine, a place to be real together, to attune to others and be attuned to, then yes.
If you want to sit in an intergenerational circle of wise women, learning torah of the internal landscape and doing a generative spiritual writing practice, join us for Yemima learning.
If you want to be embraced in melody, punctuated by wisdom of our ancestors, join us for Evenings of Song. This is for people of every singing ability. The beauty we create is a side-effect to the very experience of listening, breathing, expressing: co-creating.
If you want to pray unabashedly, express through ancient language, sing wordlessly, flow between connection and being alone together, join us for davening (prayer).
And if you want to indulge in living a world permeated with these things, join us for every program.
Rahmana is unlike other Jewish spaces in a few different ways, and we love inviting in women who want to immerse deeply in the poetry and potential intimacy of these spaces. Our events draw women with rich Jewish backgrounds and who are newly exploring their Jewishness; women from Denver's Orthodox, Conservative, and Reconstructionist communities, and from across Denver's otherwise unaffiliated Jewish population.
This is a new type of space. Come as you are. We're excited to grow with you.
If you want to sit in an intergenerational circle of wise women, learning torah of the internal landscape and doing a generative spiritual writing practice, join us for Yemima learning.
If you want to be embraced in melody, punctuated by wisdom of our ancestors, join us for Evenings of Song. This is for people of every singing ability. The beauty we create is a side-effect to the very experience of listening, breathing, expressing: co-creating.
If you want to pray unabashedly, express through ancient language, sing wordlessly, flow between connection and being alone together, join us for davening (prayer).
And if you want to indulge in living a world permeated with these things, join us for every program.
Rahmana is unlike other Jewish spaces in a few different ways, and we love inviting in women who want to immerse deeply in the poetry and potential intimacy of these spaces. Our events draw women with rich Jewish backgrounds and who are newly exploring their Jewishness; women from Denver's Orthodox, Conservative, and Reconstructionist communities, and from across Denver's otherwise unaffiliated Jewish population.
This is a new type of space. Come as you are. We're excited to grow with you.
How is Rahmana different from a shul?
Shuls (synagogues) are often the place of offering Jewish answers or structures in response to life's questions. We're offering life's question to Jewish answers: What depth and potential is possible [when women are centered] in communal Jewish life?
Unlike shuls, Rahmana is not trying to hold the full lifecycle of a full community. We are trying to discover and amplify the potential in women's gathering, using traditional Jewish tools.
We meet mostly in homes; the torah we bring is mostly about relationships and the internal landscape; in our learning, Rav Hannah guides not only the content of our conversation but also the mode in which we relate to each other, relate to the content, and sometimes even how we relate to ourselves. For instance: "focus on what you do understand," "We are not evaluating each other, but witnessing each other. We try not to complement someone else's writing style but rather to express what is resonant for us or images that their writing evokes."
Like some shuls, our rabbi is a woman. We see everyone as a learner, always in process. Emotions and spirit are core elements of what we cultivate and allow.
Like all shuls, we always have food.
Unlike shuls, Rahmana is not trying to hold the full lifecycle of a full community. We are trying to discover and amplify the potential in women's gathering, using traditional Jewish tools.
We meet mostly in homes; the torah we bring is mostly about relationships and the internal landscape; in our learning, Rav Hannah guides not only the content of our conversation but also the mode in which we relate to each other, relate to the content, and sometimes even how we relate to ourselves. For instance: "focus on what you do understand," "We are not evaluating each other, but witnessing each other. We try not to complement someone else's writing style but rather to express what is resonant for us or images that their writing evokes."
Like some shuls, our rabbi is a woman. We see everyone as a learner, always in process. Emotions and spirit are core elements of what we cultivate and allow.
Like all shuls, we always have food.
What ages are invited to participate in Rahmana events?
ALL OF THEM!! Unless you're asking about bringing your kids. Our policy on daughters: if they want to be here and you don't think they will distract you much, they may come. While we are in these early phases on developing Rahmana experiences, we are focused on programming for adult women.
Our community members include women ranging from age 14 to 70+ and our gatherings are intergenerational by design - a quality that young and old alike cherish.
We have some conversations in the works about bringing Rahmana's learnings to the broader community.
Our community members include women ranging from age 14 to 70+ and our gatherings are intergenerational by design - a quality that young and old alike cherish.
We have some conversations in the works about bringing Rahmana's learnings to the broader community.
Do I have to understand Hebrew or have a background in text study to learn or pray with Rahmana?
During text study, we always include the original language of a text and also English. Prayer with Rahmana is in two languages: Hebrew and song. We hope you'll feel at home in at least one of them.
how often does rahmana have events?
While we have programming throughout the year, our calendar is punctuated by three annual holidays when we bring in guest collaborators. We think of these like the ancient “pilgrimage festivals”: a time to ingather, so we can feel the energy of a larger community. The collaborators who join in with our bigger events are women with tremendous gifts in spiritual facilitation: prayer, song, text study, dance, and/or art-making.
If your questions aren't answered here, please get in touch! We'd love to hear from you!