What the
You’re probably wondering what the is IYUN? Or you may be wondering how to pronounce it. Let’s take it one step at a time.
IYUN is a hebrew word for diving deep to draw out meaning from a text.
That, in a nutshell, describes the Jewish way of reading. We are underwater, deep-meaning spelunkers. And the texts we explore are often in conversation with each other, carefully layered over one another, spanning thousands of years of Jewish cultures and civilizations that weave through the whole history of our human story. It’s everything under the sun that might shine a light on what’s staring back at us.
IYUN was started by a dancer, a therapist, and a Rabbi.
Which sounds like the beginning of a joke your uncle would tell, but that doesn’t make it untrue. The reason those jokes work is that something magical happens when you bring different people together. Different ways of thinking, feeling, being, all mixing it up in one place and providing the most delightful of dramatic devices: unexpected things will happen.
IYUN Circles are an eclectic collection of folks who gather over 5-10 weeks for a new kind of conversation.
The kind where you sit down with a glass and a range of texts—from Bible to Brene Brown—and boldly ask big, messy human questions. Importantly, we don’t pretend to have any of the big answers — just a whole lot of curiosity and an abiding love of people. Also, just to put it all out there, we’re really into Torah (aka the millenia-old big Jewish conversation) and its uncanny ability to hold up a mirror to our lives.