Jes Golden, PhD
Philosopher and Jewish meditation teacher.
Lineage
I am a fifth-generation New Yorker on every side of my family. My people are Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews from New York, and before that, Germany, Poland, Austria, and Ukraine; my Sephardi side comes from London, and before that, Crypto-Jews who remained in Spain and Portugal until the 1700s. My people are also Germans and Swedes.
I grew up in the suburbs of New York, on the ancestral lands of the Unkechaug people, and currently reside in Somerville, MA, on lands originally tended by the Massachusett, Pawtucket, and Naumkeag peoples.
My philosophical training comes through Alva Noë, John Campbell, and others at UC Berkeley, as well as Frédérique de Vignemont at Institut Jean Nicod, and many other mentors and interlocutors over the years. Before that, I learned from attentive, rigorous, and generous mentors at SUNY Geneseo.
My Jewish contemplative practice and teaching were formed at Or HaLev and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, especially the Gates of Awareness teacher training program, where I learned from Rav James Jacobson-Maisels, Rabbi Sam Feinsmith, Rabbi Dorothy Richman, and Danny Cohen—all of whom continue to be my teachers.
My teachers stand in a lineage of Jewish meditation that draws on Kabbalistic and Hasidic sources, and that takes up Jewish mindfulness as what Rav James Jacobson-Maisels calls "spiritual archaeology." Lineages of displacement and destruction mean Jewish contemplatives face a distinctively broken lineage; I am part of the lineage that takes the intact mystical and contemplative teachings we have and reads Judaism as a contemplative tradition, as many of our sages did.
Rabbi Shefa Gold once shared about leading High Holy Day services at a retreat taught by Thich Nhat Hanh. She sent him several books about Judaism so he could understand the holidays' significance for his Jewish students, and at the opening session, he shared:
"It is my understanding that the purpose of all Jewish practice is to live every moment in the awareness of God's Presence… and that is Mindfulness."Rabbi Shefa Gold, quoting Thich Nhat Hanh, z"l — Yom Kippur sermon, 5776
I am grateful to have been shaped by many teachers of Theravada Buddhism, especially teachers at Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock. These practices have been invaluable in helping me develop the habits of mind, body, and heart to read, embody, and teach Judaism as a contemplative practice. To quote one of my teachers:
"My secular mindfulness training has allowed me insight into the texts and the ability to take on practices in these texts that I might otherwise have found impossible. My work of spiritual archaeology, of uncovering and reclaiming Jewish spiritual practice, has been grounded in my contemplative training in the mindfulness tradition. It has combined the embodied teaching of mindfulness meditation received from living teachers with the textual teaching of Jewish spiritual practices from masters who are no longer with us."Rav James Jacobson-Maisels, "Neo-Hasidic Meditation," in A New Hasidism: Roots (Jewish Publication Society / University of Nebraska Press, 2019)
I aim to continue this lineage b'kavod, b'tzedek, b'chesed—with honor, with justice, with lovingkindness. May this work be for the benefit of all.
Jes Golden, PhD, is a philosopher and Jewish meditation teacher. Jes earned their doctorate at UC Berkeley with a dissertation on gut feelings and embodied epistemology, advised by Alva Noë and John Campbell, with visiting positions at the Institut Jean Nicod (Paris), Harvard, and MIT. Jes is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Possible Minds at Indiana University Bloomington, where they hold visiting affiliations with the Borns Jewish Studies Program and the Center on Religion and the Human. Jes is also a Postdoctoral Affiliate at the Meditation Research Program at Harvard Medical School / Massachusetts General Hospital. Their research has received funding from the Chateaubriand Fellowship, offered by the Embassy of France, as well as the Foundation for Philosophical Orientation.
Jes teaches meditation regularly through the Institute for Jewish Spirituality (IJS), Or HaLev, and RUACH. They completed the Gates of Awareness three-year Jewish Meditation Teacher Training, jointly run by Or HaLev and IJS, and are currently a Senior Teaching Fellow through IJS's Marbeh fellowship.
As a queer Sephardi and Ashkenazi writer, Jes' work on ancestry, practice, and embodied Jewish life both informs their teaching and has appeared in Hey Alma and At The Well. They are currently writing The Body Inherits: Gut Feelings, Ancestry, and the Craft of Knowledge (working title) and developing Merhav: The Wide Place, a digital series on embodied Jewish contemplative life. They live in Somerville, Massachusetts, with their wife and beloved community.
Short bio + speaker bio versions available on request—reach out here.