Signature Offerings
Facilitation: Workshops, Retreats, Trainings and more
Rory Michelle is an expert and inspired program designer and facilitator. Want your gathering to be heart-centered, where participants feel heard and held? Reach out.
Communal Song Gatherings
Rory Michelle leads communal song in a variety of settings, Jewish and beyond, and is a master at engaging all ages. From tiny babies to elders, from lively camp song sessions and uplifting synagogue Shabbat programs to contemplative and intimate healing services, from sing-along concerts at bars and festivals to moving memorial services, Rory Michelle has touched thousands of individuals with her enchanting voice and spirit. Bring her to your community to leave participants with a sense of wholeness and belonging.
Artist in Residence Weekends
Rory Michelle brings her signature and holistic take on Jewish wisdom to your community. Be uplifted by lively musical Shabbat services, inspired by musical meditations on "Turning into Who You Are", and warmed by intentional and relational programs for families with young children, kids, B'nai Mitzvah students, madrichim and teens, elders, and everyone in between.
We craft everything to bring the best distillation of Rory Michelle's gifts to the strengths and needs of your community. Rory Michelle is all about collaboration, thought-partnership, intentionality, and purposeful choices of everything from "set list" to program design. We'll work/play together towards a joyful, moving and inspiring weekend that will reverberate within your community long beyond our time together.
We craft everything to bring the best distillation of Rory Michelle's gifts to the strengths and needs of your community. Rory Michelle is all about collaboration, thought-partnership, intentionality, and purposeful choices of everything from "set list" to program design. We'll work/play together towards a joyful, moving and inspiring weekend that will reverberate within your community long beyond our time together.
Weekends may include:
Download program menu below for more detail on each offering.
- Musical Friday Night Service
- Shabbat morning prayer (traditional and/or creative)
- Shabbat afternoon lunch and learn with song-as-text-study and/or song session
- Saturday night havdalah plus community sing-along concert, workshop performance of Rory Michelle's musical RISING IN LOVE, or workshop of a new Jewish wisdom-based song and how participants relate to the underlying text and themes
- Sunday morning integration into existing programs: Tot Shabbat, Religious School, Teen Programs, B'nai Mitzvah Prep, Adult Education, Teacher Training, and more
- Whatever else we can dream up together
Download program menu below for more detail on each offering.
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Additional Offerings
Speaking & Programs:
On Authenticity and Finding Our Paths
(or our way back to them)
How do we find our way in life? How much do we know ourselves? How much is our path determined by external expectations versus our own inner knowing and joy?
These are questions that Rory Michelle has lived for her whole life alongside experiences both of profound purpose as well as taking unexpected turns, forgetting, and remembering again.
Jewish tradition - specifically, the Talmud - teaches us that we must provide our children with five (or six) things (Kiddushin 29a). In addition to the obligation to circumcise sons and redeem them if they are the firstborn, we must teach them Torah, find them a spouse, teach them a trade, and - if we live near water - teach them to swim.
This has resonance with the ten points that psychologist Abraham Maslow calls on educators to address to respond to the potential an individual has for growing into a self-actualizing person of their own:
1. We should teach people to be authentic, to be aware of their inner selves and to hear their inner-feeling voices.
2. We should teach people to transcend their cultural conditioning and become world citizens.
3. We should help people discover their vocation in life, their calling, fate or destiny. This is especially focused on finding the right career and the right mate.
4. We should teach people that life is precious, that there is joy to be experienced in life, and if perople are open to seeing the good and joyous in all kinds of situations, it makes life worth living.
5. We must accept the person as they are and help the person learn their inner nature. From real knowledge of aptitudes and limitations we can know what to build upon, what potentials are really there.
6. We must see that the person's basic needs are satisfied. This includes safety, belongingness, and esteem needs.
7. We should refreshen consciousness, teaching the person to appreciate beauty and the other good things in nature and in living.
8. We should teach people that controls are good, and complete abandon is bad. It takes control to improve the quality of life in all areas.
9. We should teach people to transcend the trifling programs and grapple with the serious problems in life. These include the problems of injustice, of pain, suffering, and death.
10. We must teach people to be good choosers. They must be given practice in making good choices.
Rory Michelle seeks to help families and educators provide people, especially teens and young adults, with the support they need to thrive, self-actualize, uncover and answer their calling, align their partner search with who they are, manage money in a joyful way, and become themselves.
Watch her talk on this topic of self (re)discovery to a group of teens, below. Inspired by time-honored books like "What Color is Your Parachute" by Richard Nelson Bolles and "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron, programs have included self-inventories for teens incorporating reflective exercises, music, and meditations to visualize what brings them joy, leaving them feeling expansive, hopeful, happy, and inspired.
Topics ranging from career exploration, knowing who you are so you know who to date, money mindfulness, and more are currently under development. Want to collaborate on providing your teens with the tools for self-knowledge, authenticity, and good choices? Reach out.
These are questions that Rory Michelle has lived for her whole life alongside experiences both of profound purpose as well as taking unexpected turns, forgetting, and remembering again.
Jewish tradition - specifically, the Talmud - teaches us that we must provide our children with five (or six) things (Kiddushin 29a). In addition to the obligation to circumcise sons and redeem them if they are the firstborn, we must teach them Torah, find them a spouse, teach them a trade, and - if we live near water - teach them to swim.
This has resonance with the ten points that psychologist Abraham Maslow calls on educators to address to respond to the potential an individual has for growing into a self-actualizing person of their own:
1. We should teach people to be authentic, to be aware of their inner selves and to hear their inner-feeling voices.
2. We should teach people to transcend their cultural conditioning and become world citizens.
3. We should help people discover their vocation in life, their calling, fate or destiny. This is especially focused on finding the right career and the right mate.
4. We should teach people that life is precious, that there is joy to be experienced in life, and if perople are open to seeing the good and joyous in all kinds of situations, it makes life worth living.
5. We must accept the person as they are and help the person learn their inner nature. From real knowledge of aptitudes and limitations we can know what to build upon, what potentials are really there.
6. We must see that the person's basic needs are satisfied. This includes safety, belongingness, and esteem needs.
7. We should refreshen consciousness, teaching the person to appreciate beauty and the other good things in nature and in living.
8. We should teach people that controls are good, and complete abandon is bad. It takes control to improve the quality of life in all areas.
9. We should teach people to transcend the trifling programs and grapple with the serious problems in life. These include the problems of injustice, of pain, suffering, and death.
10. We must teach people to be good choosers. They must be given practice in making good choices.
Rory Michelle seeks to help families and educators provide people, especially teens and young adults, with the support they need to thrive, self-actualize, uncover and answer their calling, align their partner search with who they are, manage money in a joyful way, and become themselves.
Watch her talk on this topic of self (re)discovery to a group of teens, below. Inspired by time-honored books like "What Color is Your Parachute" by Richard Nelson Bolles and "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron, programs have included self-inventories for teens incorporating reflective exercises, music, and meditations to visualize what brings them joy, leaving them feeling expansive, hopeful, happy, and inspired.
Topics ranging from career exploration, knowing who you are so you know who to date, money mindfulness, and more are currently under development. Want to collaborate on providing your teens with the tools for self-knowledge, authenticity, and good choices? Reach out.
"It was so great to see you last week and thanks again for coming to TSE! I really enjoyed seeing the program come to life and it was inspiring to hear what the students took away from it, so thanks for your creativity and bringing this great workshop to my teens. :o)"
- Melissa Pescatore, Director of Youth Learning and Engagement, Temple Shaari Emeth, Manalapan, NJ
- Melissa Pescatore, Director of Youth Learning and Engagement, Temple Shaari Emeth, Manalapan, NJ
You're Turning into Who You Are:
Ritual Leadership & Coaching for B'nai Mitzvot
As a parent with a child approaching the age of B’nai Mitzvah, you have a powerful opportunity. My work is to support you to nurture who your soon-to-be teen is becoming in a way that honors both their ties to Jewish tradition and the world they inhabit today. I deeply believe this is an important growth moment for parents and the whole family as well. I would be so delighted and honored to co-create a meaningful and Jewishly-rooted coming-of-age ritual for your child – and family.
I combine personable, warm, inviting, and accessible ritual and musical leadership for the B'nai Mitzvah service/ceremony, which we will craft together.
I also offer tutoring/coaching in Torah and Haftarah reading and prayer-leading alongside sessions supporting your child to uncover and root into their authentic self in this pivotal moment of discovery and threshold-crossing.
Work with me for one of these elements (ritual/musical leadership, tutoring/coaching, rooting into authentic self sessions) or all three.
Have another ritual in mind? Please reach out as well. I love co-creating rituals of all types (especially baby namings with similar themes as above!).
I combine personable, warm, inviting, and accessible ritual and musical leadership for the B'nai Mitzvah service/ceremony, which we will craft together.
I also offer tutoring/coaching in Torah and Haftarah reading and prayer-leading alongside sessions supporting your child to uncover and root into their authentic self in this pivotal moment of discovery and threshold-crossing.
Work with me for one of these elements (ritual/musical leadership, tutoring/coaching, rooting into authentic self sessions) or all three.
Have another ritual in mind? Please reach out as well. I love co-creating rituals of all types (especially baby namings with similar themes as above!).
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RISING IN LOVE the Musical
Workshop Performances + Programming
Would your community enjoy a presentation and discussion on a new musical? Or even better - being a part of its development?
Rory Michelle's catchy, singable musical, RISING IN LOVE, is the modern-day coming of age story in which interracial Jewish couple Rosie and Scott must overcome their deepest fears to make modern love work - and discover what it takes to rise in love.
Presentation options include a table or staged reading of the work-in-progress and a feedback session. They can also be paired with workshops facilitated by Rory Michelle (with an option to partner with phenomenal Jewish educator erica riddick (she/they) of Jews of Color Sanctuary).
Rory Michelle's catchy, singable musical, RISING IN LOVE, is the modern-day coming of age story in which interracial Jewish couple Rosie and Scott must overcome their deepest fears to make modern love work - and discover what it takes to rise in love.
Presentation options include a table or staged reading of the work-in-progress and a feedback session. They can also be paired with workshops facilitated by Rory Michelle (with an option to partner with phenomenal Jewish educator erica riddick (she/they) of Jews of Color Sanctuary).
Teen Musical Prayer & Song Composition Workshops
Bring in an awesome Post-B'nai Mitzvah or Hebrew High Program that teens will love!
Students collaboratively choose and study a Jewish text then compose a song, musical prayer, or set a liturgical piece to music based on the text, then share their composition at a service or event or through a music video.
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FROM STUDENTS:
I don’t think I thanked you enough for the truly amazing songwriting elective that you put together this time around. I’m extremely grateful that I got to spend my last year of religious school doing something that means so much to me and hopefully my future (making music) and learning more about Judaism than I ever knew before. - Lea R., 10th grader at Tiferet Bet Israel, Blue Bell, PA |
FROM EDUCATORS:
It has been a distinct honor working with you. Your creativity brings out the best in my high school students. It was clear to me, by their enthusiastic participation, they got a great deal from this project. I intend to do this again next year. Meanwhile, !בהצלחה [Good luck!] - Buzz Bray, Kesher Academy Teacher, Tiferet Bet Israel, Blue Bell, PA |
Jewish Education & Music Curricula & Consulting
Want to create a safe space for your students where they feel valued, empowered, and respected? Curious how to engage students of all ages in sophisticated yet fun ways with Jewish wisdom and teachings? Looking to facilitate deep learner engagement? Or for help infusing music into your Jewish education curriculum?
Rory Michelle has created informal Jewish education curricula for day camps, innovative Jewish communities like Lab/Shul, and religious schools of all shapes and sizes. Her work focuses on Jewish literacy as well as personal and spiritual development, including a current fascination with Shmirat Halashon, or "Guarding our Speech" - how we use our words to create healing and preserve dignity. Rory Michelle's approach is informed by her graduate degree work at Harvard Graduate School of Education with Eleanor Duckworth and Duckworth's Critical Exploration, a listening-focused practice that centers student thinking. Reach out today for a consultation on how to energize and deepen learning in your community or school.
Rory Michelle has created informal Jewish education curricula for day camps, innovative Jewish communities like Lab/Shul, and religious schools of all shapes and sizes. Her work focuses on Jewish literacy as well as personal and spiritual development, including a current fascination with Shmirat Halashon, or "Guarding our Speech" - how we use our words to create healing and preserve dignity. Rory Michelle's approach is informed by her graduate degree work at Harvard Graduate School of Education with Eleanor Duckworth and Duckworth's Critical Exploration, a listening-focused practice that centers student thinking. Reach out today for a consultation on how to energize and deepen learning in your community or school.
Songleading & Community Events
In need of a Jewish musician or songleader for your religious school, camp, day school, group retreat, family program, Shabbat, holiday, or High Holiday service, B'nai Mitzvah service, creative ceremony, or other event? Rory Michelle will have everyone singing joyously along together. Looking for a songleader training or a consultation on music or curriculum? Reach out to Rory Michelle for that as well.
Arts-based Torah Study
Is learning a big focus of your community? We’ll explore Jewish text through one of Rory Michelle’s songs, or we’ll dig into one of the Girls in Trouble Curriculum units, for which Rory Michelle served as curriculum collaborator. This arts-based curriculum about women in Torah is accessible to all genders and explores the hidden intersections of Biblical character’s lives and our own, based on the indie-folk/art-pop song cycle by musician, poet, and Torah teacher Alicia Jo Rabins.
Sing-Along Concerts
A concert with Rory Michelle is never only a concert - it is a participatory event! Featuring Rory Michelle's Jewish text inspired album and plenty of singing along, concerts with Rory Michelle are a great way to bring the entire community together.
I'm excited to meet you!
Write me below and let's actualize your vision.
Write me below and let's actualize your vision.
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