“It’s very important for women to get together in a relaxing [atmosphere] and connect with their spirituality,” Rochel Berkowitz said.
Two morning workshop sessions offered choices of Israeli folk dancing lessons, a beauty makeover session, a talk on prayer and another on living to work rather than working to live. After a kosher sushi and salad bar lunch, Molly Resnick — a former producer at NBC — gave the keynote address.
“You come out of it with such a spiritual high. If I could, I would never miss one,” said Sue Leven, who has attended all five Spas for the Soul.
This time Leven brought a friend. They took dancing lessons from Rivka Bakin before hearing Shaina Trapedo explain how to “Live to Work, Not Work to Live.”
Leven was thrilled to learn some new dances and praised Bakin’s ability to teach intermediate-level Israeli folk dances to women with even modest dancing skills. Many instructors, she said, tend to keep things simpler in order to accommodate those with the least experience.
She found Trapedo’s message inspiring.
“What she was saying is a very important part of Jewish philosophy,” Leven said. “Sometimes it sounds strange when we say, ‘I’m living to work.’ It sounds like we have our priorities backwards.
“[Trapedo] didn’t mean living to work so you can put in 15 hours of overtime a week. Living to work is when we think about work as serving the creator, doing whatever we can to make the world a better place.”
