Sukkahfest at Isabella Freedman

Name: Sukkahfest at Isabella Freedman
Start: 2026-09-25T00:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-09-28T23:59:59-04:00
Location: Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center

September 25 - September 28

Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center (Falls Village, CT) + Google Map

Celebrate the harvest immersed in fall’s changing colors.

Perhaps the most joyous and diverse celebration of this holiday you will find! It takes the full spectrum of our Jewish community to manifest the joy of Sukkahfest.

Registration is Now Open

It is wonderful to daven with such energetic and spirited leaders and followers. The ruach was exceptional!

Retreat Details

About Sukkahfest

Enjoy Sukkot surrounded by the natural beauty of the Berkshires! Mornings are filled with meaningful spirited prayer led by inspiring leaders amongst the tall trees and sparkling lake. Afternoons and evenings are packed with leisure activities, classes, and fun, including special programs for children. We offer the highest quality organic kosher meals to Jews of all denominations and backgrounds.

We feature two prayer options:

Partnership Mechitza Minyan: led by Rabbis Shuli Passow, Ezra Weinberg, Avram Mlotek, and National Jewish Book Award Winning Author Michal Fox, with a trichitza (separate seating for men, women, and a genderqueer and non-conforming section)

Renewal Minyan led by Beit Kohenet: Led by Rabbi Jill Hammer, Shoshana Jedwab, Kohenet Liviah Wessely, Kohenet Harriette Wimms, Laura Wolfe, and Kohenet Arielle Aronoff

For more details about what our days may look like at Sukkahfest, see last year’s Sukkahfest Program

Please note: our sister Sukkahfest at Pearlstone will feature a Traditional Orthodox Mechitza minyan and a Traditional Egalitarian minyan, for a total of four prayer options across two retreats!

Program Highlights

On Sukkot, we dwell outside under the sun, moon, and stars. We top our sukkot with plants, and we carry plants as we pray. Sukkot invites us to commune with nature in a profound way.

We will be featuring thoughtful Chag-specific shiurim, and joyful prayer in Partnership Mechitza and Renewal minyanim. Educators and prayer leaders alike, such as Rabbis Shuli Passow, Ezra Weinberg, Avram Mlotek, and National Jewish Book Award Winning Author Michal Fox will lead our community through thoughtful learning and ritual!

We also offer a series of outdoor classes throughout the holiday, as well as yoga, tours of our organic farm, and guided hikes on our trails.

While many of our activities are family friendly, there will also be some dedicated programs for kids. These will make use of our farm and the natural environment of the retreat center.

The Beit Kohenet track at Sukkahfest will help you connect to the more-than-human world—trees, creatures, stones, water, and earth, and the great Mystery—through Jewish sources, meditative practice, nature connection, and prayer.

Some of our session topics will include Jewish tales of sentient trees and stones, learning about the Shekhinah/feminine divine as a being who dwells within our ecosystem, animals in Jewish tradition, singing to connect to all of creation, and mystical, meditative experiences out in nature. We’ll pray in a joyful Jewish Renewal style that celebrates bodies and the earth, includes instruments, and uses multigendered God-language. Join us and enter the sukkah of the world, with a floor of soil, a roof of branches and the sky above.

This track is sponsored by Beit Kohenet, a house of mystical, earth-based, feminist Jewish seeking, and will be staffed by Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, Shoshana Jedwab, Kohenet Liviah Wessely, Kohenet Harriette Wimms, and Laura Wolfe.

Davening and Ritual

We feature two prayer options:

Partnership Mechitza Minyan: Partnership Minyanim have women leading Kabbalat Shabbat, Pseukei D’Zimra, Hallel, the Torah Service, and Yizkor. In many cases, these are specifically done by women and gender non-conforming folks. Anyone can read Torah, and other than Kohen and Levi aliyot (which must be men), anyone can get an aliyah. There will be a trichitza (separate seating for men, women, and an egalitarian/mixed gender section).

Renewal Minyan: This Beit Kohenet-led service will have an earth-based, embodied, feminist approach that includes chant, meditation, and embodied practice as well as traditional forms of prayer. We use a mix of feminine, gender-neutral, and masculine G!d-language, and invite joyful, intentional worship. All are welcome!

Ushpizin/Ushpizot: Holy Guests in the Sukkah: There is a long-standing kabbalistic practice of inviting invisible sacred guests to the sukkah: biblical ancestors who represent high ideals. What ancestors do we want to invite? Who are our spiritual role models? Which ancestors teach us about the harvest, the plants, the stars, and the other mysteries of Sukkot? Could trees be our ancestors? What about the earth itself? The Beit Kohenet track at Sukkahfest will explore how we are revisioning our sacred ancestry, through Jewish sources, meditative practice, nature connection, and prayer.

Pluralism at Freedman: All Streams of Judaism flow from One Source! “AllStream” is our name for the gathering of diverse Jewish communities at Sukkahfest. AllStream (rather than “Mainstream”) Judaism seeks to validate all streams of Jewish spiritual expression, recognizing that All of the ways of being Jewish flow from and return to One Source.

Please note: our sister Sukkahfest retreat at Pearlstone will feature a Traditional Orthodox Mechitza minyan and a Traditional Egalitarian minyan, for a total of four prayer options across two retreats!

2026 Lodging & Pricing

Standard Room (Private bathroom): – SOLD OUT –

$1020 per adult in double occupancy
$1,745 per adult in single occupancy

Basic Room (Shared full bathroom for two rooms): – SOLD OUT –

$755 per adult in double occupancy
$1,345 per adult in single occupancy

Family Style (shared half bathroom between two rooms)

$525 per adult

Camping

$400 (bring your own tent)

Commuter

$400 (one-day option coming soon)

Child sharing a room with parent(s):

Child 5-12 years old: $215
Toddler 2-4 years old: $105
Infant under 2 years old: free but must be registered

Scholarships

We believe retreats are important experiences to be shared, and inclusiveness is one of our core values. We strive to ensure that our retreats are as financially accessible as possible. If our current prices are not affordable for you or your family, we invite you to apply for a scholarship before registering.

Scholarship Application

2026 Teachers and Educators

Partnership Michitza Minyan

Avram Mlotek

Avram Mlotek is a rabbi, writer and social worker. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Daily News, JTA, The Forward, and Tablet. He is a co-founder of Base—an initiative empowering rabbis and their partners to turn their homes into vibrant centers of hospitality, learning, and service for young adults, now operating across more than a dozen sites worldwide. Mlotek has authored five books: Why Jews Do That: Or 30 Questions Your Rabbi Never Answered, Passover in a Pandemic, Butterfly: Based On A Hasidic Fable, The Torah of Social Media, and My Yiddish Alphabet. He is the co-creator of the acclaimed Yiddish operetta Amid Falling Walls (Tsvishn Falndike Vent), which brings Holocaust-era songs and survivor accounts to the stage and won the 2024 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revue, recently adapted by PBS for television. Recognized by The Forward as one of "America's Most Inspiring Rabbis," Mlotek lives and works at the intersection of spiritual activism and creative arts.

Michal Fox

Michal Fox has led ground-breaking work in the field of Jewish education for more than thirty years, working at the nexus of personal, spiritual, and professional development. Michal helps professionals and private clients in and beyond the Jewish community to discover the riches of Jewish tradition and to show up as their fullest and most resourced selves. Years ago, Michal pioneered Jewish outdoor and environmental education in the U.S., co-founding COEJL, TEVA, and directing the Isabella Freedman Retreat Center. Michal served as Associate Principal of Bi-Cultural Hebrew Academy and then Director of Ayeka North America, emerging as a national leader on soulful pedagogy and the spiritual development of educators. Her book Kaddish: Women’s Voices, Winner of the National Jewish Book Award, addresses issues of inclusion in Jewish communal life, complex family dynamics, as well as the powerful role that ritual and prayer can play in healing. As Chief Program Officer for IJS, Michal deepened and expanded the reach of Jewish mindfulness and spirituality. A resident of Stamford CT, Michal is the proud Ema of five emerging adults, each deliciously different. She is delighted to join and co-lead the Sukkahfest community in meaningful learning and joyful prayer.

Rabbi Ezra Weinberg

Rabbi Ezra Weinberg is a shaliach tzibur, officiant and Jewish educator dedicated to creating connection and community. He is a native Philadelphian and holds an MA in Conflict Transformation. Reb Ezra officiates weddings and Bnai Mitzvot, teaches a University course called, “One G-d, Three Paths”, alongside a priest and Imam. He currently works with individuals and families within the Jewish community and founded ReVoice, a network of resources for Jewish going through divorce.

Rabbi Shuli Passow

Rabbi Shuli Passow is delighted to be spending Sukkot at Isabella Freedman with her family for the 9th time. Shuli oversees adult engagement and programming at B’nai Jeshurun, a large synagogue in Manhattan, and finds deep gratification in her work of community building. As a lay leader, Shuli serves on the board of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. She is a certified yoga instructor and has recently added circus arts to her repertoire of embodied practices. She lives in Manhattan with her husband David and their sons Idan and Azi.

Renewal Minyan with Beit Kohenet

Kohenet Arielle Aronoff

Kohenet Arielle Aronoff LMSW is an outdoor educator and naturalist, who brings knowledge of the intersections of Judaism and ecology. She seeks to create an environment in which our natural inclination for exploration, curiosity, and connection can be engaged while developing a meaningful relationship to Jewish tradition, the land, and each other. Arielle’s training has come from many paths. She has a Master's in Social Work from SUNY Albany, BA in Anthropology and Environmental Studies from SUNY Geneseo, and a Permaculture Design Certificate from Kibbutz Lotan Center for Creative Ecology. In addition, Arielle attends workshops and conferences to develop her knowledge in Earth skills such as awareness, wildcrafting, fire tending, and community building. She served as Director of Teva, a program of Adamah, founded a Forest Hebrew School with Kol Hai, Jewish Renewal, and worked as an educator and field guide in many nature based programs. Arielle is a therapist at Wellness Embodied in New Paltz NY, a B Mitzvah tutor and mentor, and leads trainings in environmental education both in Jewish and secular settings

Kohenet Dr. Harriette E. Wimms

Kohenet Dr. Harriette E. Wimms is a Maryland licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in providing compassion-infused mental health care to children, adolescents, adults, and families across the age span. K’Harriette is a prayer leader in both the Kohenet community and at Hinenu: The Baltimore Justice Shtiebl. Dr. Wimms is also the inaugural Jews of Engagement Fellow at The Associated, Baltimore Jewish Federation (the first position of its type within any Jewish Federation System). A current Schusterman Fellow, Dr. Wimms is a Selah cohort 17 fellow; a contract trainer for Keshet, and the founder and executive director of the Jews of Color Mishpacha Project as well as the organization’s signature JOCSM Shabbatonim (JOCMishpacha.org). She is a proud Black, disabled, Jew by choice, and is most proud of being mother to her neurodiverse 20 year-old.

Kohenet Liviah Wessely

Kohenet Liviah Wessely, priestess, guardian, and song-weaver, has regularly held ritual space for the Kohenet community, as well as leading, co-leading and acting as cybergabbai. She writes and arranges liturgical music for chanting and choral settings. K’Liviah has led or co-led for Yelala, Kesher Pittsburgh, the Nechama Minyon, and numerous rituals, including weddings, funerals, and shiva services. She has catered events and taught cooking classes through her company MamaBakes, teaches college theater, English and Humanities, and is a theater director, producer, designer and dramaturge. Liviah is the mother of three adults: a painter and poet, an opera singer, and an engineer, plus two cats—Cary Grant and Grace Kelly—residing in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Laura Wolfe

Laura Wolfe is a lifelong seeker, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter, meditator, and recording artist with decades of experience leading musical services and peer support spaces. Skilled in coaching and facilitation across diverse communities through using and teaching Re-Evaluation Co-Counseling, she offers 1:1 and group support grounded in emotional growth and spiritual awareness—serving adoptive parents, LGBTQ+ communities, artists, and Jewish communities. She has been blessed and honored to work with and be mentored by R. David Ingber, R. Shir Meira, Chazzan Basya Shechter, Naomi Less, Shoshana Jedwab, and R. Jill Hammer, with whom she has led countless Shabbat and High Holiday services, co-led retreats, and shared the stage over the last 15 years. As a prayer leader and performer, she brings musical excellence to everything she touches, humbly serving as a channel to experience sacred space—within, and all around.

Rabbi Jill Hammer

Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, author, scholar, ritualist, poet, dreamworker and midrashist, is the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion (www.ajrsem.org), and a co-founder of Beit Kohenet, a house of Jewish, mystical, earth-based, feminist seeking. She is the author of Undertorah: An Earth-Based Kabbalah of Dreaming, Return to the Place: The Magic, Meditation, and Mystery of Sefer Yetzirah, The Hebrew Priestess: Ancient and New Visions of Jewish Women’s Spiritual Leadership (with Taya Shere), The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons, The Omer Calendar of Biblical Women, Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women, and The Book of Earth and Other Mysteries. She is also the author of academic articles published in Religion and Literature, Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies and Gender Studies, The Journal of Applied Social Psychology, and The Journal of Lesbian Studies, as well as anthologies including Best Jewish Writing 2002 and the Encyclopedia of Women and World Religions. She is the translator of The Romemu Siddur and of Siddur haKohanot: A Hebrew Priestess Prayerbook. Her forthcoming novel is called The Moonstone Covenant. She has written a children’s book, The Garden of Time. She lives in Manhattan with her family.

Shoshana Jedwab

Shoshana Jedwab is a percussionist, singer-songwriter, and worship leader known for her intuitive musicality and drumming, often called the "heartbeat" of a service. A prize-winning Jewish educator, and the Middle School Jewish Life Coordinator at the A.J. Heschel School, she composes Jewish and World devotional songs that are notable for their reach and depth. Her debut album, I Remember, and singles like Where You Go (I Will Go), Openings, Torah Orah, and Life Is Born, offer feminist interpretations of ancient wisdom. Her viral 2018 social justice anthem, Where You Go (I Will Go), a "zipper song" based on the Book of Ruth, promotes radical love and inclusion in a time of rising xenophobia. Where You Go is popular in Unitarian Universalist congregations and was featured in the American film, This Little Light, the German chapbook Trotz Kraft, and Extinction Rebellion’s U.K. Songbook. Jedwab's new songs, White Feathers, Borderline Ozi, and Modah Ani, are forthcoming. Jewish Rock Radio recognized Shoshana Jedwab among "Jewish Women Who Rock the Worship World." Shoshana is passionate these days about Beit Kohenet’s Practical Mystics’ Monthly Circle which she facilitates.

Kids Activities

Camp Adamah offers engaging programming for children ages 2-12. Adamah’s values of cultivating vibrant Jewish life in deep connection with the earth through joy, love, and hope are exemplified in all of our activities. At our holiday retreats, children will have the opportunity to explore the land, forest and farm. All activities are shabbat and holiday friendly. Activities include meeting the chickens, hiking to the magnificent overlook, forest games, nature art, field games, and more! Gan Adamah, ages 2-4, is scheduled each morning of the retreat and Camp Adamah (ages 5-12) is held in the mornings and afternoons. We look forward to welcoming your family to our campus!

Kids programming will be outdoors as much as possible, including in the rain; a raincoat, rain boots, hiking boots or sneakers, and a labeled water bottle are required.

Beit Kohenet Track: Circles of Blessing

The harvest festival of Sukkot uses plant tools, circling, and ancestral connection to channel blessing into the universe. How do these practices transform us? How do they relate to other Jewish rituals of blessing and protection? Join Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, Shoshana Jedwab, Kohenet Liviah Wessely, Kohenet Dr. Harriette Wimms, Laura Wolfe and others as we pray, sing in the sukkah, study Torah and folk tradition, and encounter the magic of the harvest and the world of nature.

The Wisdom of Seeds: Sukkot, Harvest, and Hidden Potential with Kohenet Arielle Aronoff

Sukkot invites us to celebrate the abundance of the harvest while reminding us that every ending carries the possibility of a new beginning. Together, we’ll wander into the forest to explore seeds, cycles, growth, decay, and the mysteries of what lies beneath the surface. Through sensory awareness, forest wandering, Jewish teachings, and contemplative practice, we’ll reflect on what we are harvesting, what we are planting, and what we are willing to let lie dormant. Drawing on the Torah’s teaching of zera—seed and future generations—we’ll consider the seeds we have received, the seeds we carry, and what we might nurture for a future we cannot yet see.

Make Your Own Lulav with Kohenet Arielle Aronoff

Make your own local lulav using plants harvested in the area. Learn about how to parallel the traditional lulav species with species that grow on this land.

All Streams Tisch with Shoshana Jedwab

A sukkah is a deliberately porous shelter where worlds meet, binaries dissolve, and the Veil between the worlds is thin. The complete ecosystem is revealed on Sukkot where we even dine with the Ushpizin souls who live as we do in the Tree of Life. The Sukkahfest Tisch is an invitation to a gather into a Sukkah layered with song, story and lechaims. Round and round the table or tisch we go as those who feel called share the niggun or tale that connects them (and now all of us) to someone who has passed to the Other Side. Encounter the awesome and uncanny and one another as we root deeper into the worlds of earth and heaven, human and plant, living and dead, beneath Tishrei’s waning moon.

Ushpizin: Ghosts in the Sukkah with Shoshana Jedwab

Sukkot engages us in the full circle of life since our celebration of the final harvest ncludes the encounter with death.Many cultures believe that, at certain sacred moments, the boundary between this world and the next grows thin. Jewish mysticism offers its own version of this idea through the tradition of the Ushpizin, the ancestral guests who are said to visit every sukkah during Sukkot. Join us as we explore the origins of this remarkable custom and its place within the wider human story of welcoming ancestors, saints, and sacred visitors.

The Power of Circles with Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD

Join Rabbi Jill Hammer, Director of Learning and Ritual at Beit Kohenet, to reflect on the ways Jews use circles in ritual, from hoshanot to wedding processions to magical protection. What is the unique power of the circle, and how does that power connect to the harvest festival of Sukkot, known in the Bible as “the turning/circling of the year”? How do circles heal and transform us?

The I in Me: Greeting the Self as Friend with Kohenet Dr. Harriette Wimms

Radical welcoming is a Jewish value. The Torah tells us 36 times that we must honor the stranger: providing an invitation to community for those who are lost and alone. Yet, this concept is complicated by the reality that many people would treat a stranger with more kindness than we show ourselves. What would happen if we turned connection and love inward? This class explores the idea that the most important stranger we’re called to welcome is ourselves.

Drawing on the psychology of attachment and the Jewish teaching that Shekhinah dwells within us, we will explore the deepest possible grounding for secure attachment to self.This isn’t a self-help class. Instead it is a call to nurture the seeds of welcome and change within ourselves–recognizing that we are worthy of being welcomed, regarded, and loved just as we are. Belonging, mattering, and Ahavah Rabbah begin within and radiate out as we explore mystical Jewish texts and spirit journeys that guide us toward a practice of loving ourselves without judgment so that we can manifest radical welcoming and healing in the outside world.

More Classes will be shared soon.

Registration Now Open

For more information about accommodations, dining, transportation, and campus amenities, please visit our Guest Information and FAQ page.

Guest Information & FAQs

Details

Start: September 25
End: September 28
Event Categories: Featured, Holidays, Isabella Freedman, Retreats

Venue

Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center
116 Johnson Rd
Falls Village, CT 06031 United States
Phone +18608245991