Reset & Refresh participants at the Austin Salt Cave. Courtesy: Alachua Haskins

By Alachua Haskins   

This summer, Austin had the opportunity to become one of the first four pilot communities to launch Reset & Refresh, alongside Portland, Oregon, Atlanta, Georgia and Buffalo, New York. R&R is a program developed at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle in 2018. It invites mixed-heritage couples between 28-45 into a welcoming Jewish space for self-discovery, rejuvenation, deepening relationships and building community. For the purposes of this program, “mixed heritage” is defined as a couple where at least one couple identifies as Jewish, but also includes couples where both are Jewish but have different backgrounds/practices.   

Through seven sessions, eight Austin couples used Shabbat as an entry into and compass for Jewish life, celebrating their own backgrounds and weaving their identities together to explore what Jewish practices will be meaningful in their homes and how they want to participate in the Jewish community.  

The program kicked off with a session exploring how people gather, inviting participants to being to co-create their special and unique community by setting intentions for the journey ahead. They then moved to begin weaving their Jew-ish identities, exploring a range of ideas around Jewishness and reflecting on elements they want to intertwine in their story as a couple. In the third session, Shabbat became the focus and they explored the meaning behind several rituals at the core of Shabbat practice.   

They then invited a special guest Allison Teegardin to lead them in an artisanal challah baking workshop, exploring how stories baked into this ancient Shabbat bread are re-braiding Jewish identity today. Next, they pampered themselves and prepared their souls for Shabbat, cultivating a sense of the sacred by participating in a sound bath in a salt cave.   

The program concluded with a weekend Shabbat retreat featuring a Shabbat dinner to experience Shabbat practices in real time, a DIY Shabbat retreat where couples imagined “doing Jewish” from a place of possibilities and tried on Shabbat practices as home and culminated the journey with a rejuvenating Havdalah ceremony.  

“I had an incredible Reset & Refresh experience shared with my fiancé and our Austin cohort. This experience was so empowering for us as an interfaith couple with different religious upbringings, who plan to raise Jewish children. We were given the time and space to explore what Jew-ish means to us as a couple and our future together. I am thankful that I never felt like an ‘outsider’ in R&R having grown up differently than others in my group, and I’d say this experience truly made me feel the most connected to the Jewish community than I have in the past 4 1/2 years I’ve been with my Jewish partner,” said participant Carlea Sundin.  

Through this cohort, eight couples created community through shared experienced, nourished their spirits and deepened their curiosity about each other and what Jewish life has to offer. They walked away understanding the multiple ways to “do Jewish” and how Shabbat practice can elevate their relationship and their lives.  

Shalom Austin was so excited to bring this program to Austin and looks forward to extending it into the future.  

To learn more about Reset & Refresh,  contact  Shalom Austin Learning and Engagement Director Alachua Haskins at alachua.haskins@shalomaustin.org.