Nudniks, Critics, and Dybbuks:
Overcoming Walls You Never Built

with Gershon Winkler
all-around coyote and renegade rabbi
 

Deep inside each of us lies all of us.  The great challenge in life and the primary source of most of our emotional upsets is trying to access the real us.  Who and what are we beyond and in spite of the givens and definitions that family, culture, religion, and community have established for us?  In this session, we will engage and explore three major factors that sabotage our deep personal unfolding: the Nudnik, the Critic, and the Dybbuk.

Nudnik:    old tapes that tell us we should be more than what we are comfortable with being.

Critic:     voices from without and from within that tell us we can't make it.

Dybbuk:    our adoption of other people's personas for lack of a handle on
accessing our own uniqueness.
 

Brief Bio

Gershon Winkler is a teacher and practitioner of ancient Jewish shamanism and lives in the wilds of northwestern New Mexico where he farms, writes, husbands, hikes, meditates, and co-parents.  He also serves as a circuit-riding rabbi, regularly visiting Jewish communities across southwest Colorado and western Montana. Author of ten books on Jewish philosophy, folklore, and mysticism, Gershon travels often across the US and Israel to share the more aboriginal wisdom of the Jewish tradition with audiences ranging from the learned and the curious to the skeptical and the estranged.  His books include The Way of the Boundary Crosser,  The Place Where You Are Standing is Holy,  Sacred Secrets,  The Soul of the Matter, Dybbuk,  The Golem of Prague,  The Sacred Stones,  They Called Her Rebbe, and Secret of Sambatyon.

Originally ordained in the ultra-Orthodox tradition by the late kabbalist Rabbi Eliezer Benseon in Jerusalem, Gershon brings to his teachings a refreshing wisdom gleaned from 18 years of wilderness living combined with an erudite knowledge of the original Hebraic and Aramaic texts.  His bold writings have appeared in publications ranging from Moment Magazine to Lovingmore.
 
 
 

What they say about this guy...
 

"Irreverent, funny, and provocative...
Resembles the famed brazen trickster of folklore...
A mischievous maverick of modern Judaism...
Down-to-earth, warm, and gregarious..."
-- Intermountain Jewish News, Denver, Colorado (February 19, 1999)
 

"Gershon Winkler peppers his workshops with a healthy dose of storytelling, chanting, and humor,creating the impression that we're attending the lecture of our favorite college professor or a performance by the likes of monologist Spalding Gray."
-- Missoula Independent, Missoula, Montana (September 1998)
 

"Travels an unusual path and ruffles feathers."
-- The Wall Street Journal  (July 20, 1992)
 

"A unique blend of Lenny Bruce and the Baal Shem Tov"
The Center Post Rowe, Massachusetts (Vol. 11, No. 2)
 

"His knowledge is a universe away from the glib superficiality of pop mysticism and mass market 'spirituality.'"
-- Bernie Kling in The Jewish Community Update, Sedona, Arizona (December 1999)
 

"Gershon is a true coyote if I ever met one, always scratching behind his ears while drooling at the sight of a passing roadrunner."
-- David Carson, co-author of Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power Through the Ways of Animals


Even more: See the web site