From Challenge to Core Mission

Rooted and Rising was established out of a recognized need for a holistic revolution in Jewish education. For too long, the field has operated in silos: content specialists focus solely on curriculum, and wellness experts address only student behavior. We saw the need to synthesize these practices into a unified approach that builds organizational resilience from the inside out.

Our core vision is to serve as the bridge between the profound wisdom of our Jewish tradition (the Rooted foundation) and the essential frameworks of modern psychology and pedagogy (the Rising potential). We believe that sustainable educational excellence is only achieved when identity, well-being, and tradition are cultivated together. 

The Heightened Urgency: Post-October 7th

The events of October 7th and the subsequent global landscape profoundly amplified the need for this synthesis. Educational settings across the Jewish world have been tasked with building a bridge between profound pain and enduring hope. This moment demanded a significant shift to a person-centered approach that deviates from formal, content-only strategies.

The crisis underscored several critical needs that Rooted and Rising is uniquely qualified to address:

1. Prioritizing Mental Health: The trauma and collective anxiety required educators to attend to the emotional landscape of the room first. Our SEL-integrated model ensures staff and students have the self-management, boundary-setting, and resilience tools necessary to cope and thrive amidst complexity.

2. Navigating Conflict and Identity: The current climate has intensified conversations around Israel, complexity, and Jewish identity (Zehut). Our focus on Conflict Competence and Nuanced Israel Education empowers organizations to facilitate difficult, multi-narrative discussions with intellectual honesty and institutional safety, turning moments of tension into opportunities for profound growth.

The Holistic Advantage: Balancing Formal and Informal Education

Rooted and Rising's approach is strengthened by deep experience across the full spectrum of Jewish learning—from the structure of formal curriculum to the dynamism of informal, experiential programs.

• Experiential Education: We champion the integration of experiential education as a necessary tool for meaning-making. Learners retain content more deeply, and identity is formed more strongly, when education is felt and applied rather than just taught.

• The Seamless Ecosystem: We empower our partners to view their entire organization, from the B'nei Mitzvah program to faculty professional development, as a single, interconnected ecosystem of growth. By balancing the rigor of formal learning with the relational depth of informal practices, we cultivate environments where every individual is enabled to reach their full potential.

Rooted and Rising is not just consulting on what to teach but on how to teach, how to lead, and how to heal. We partner with leaders to transform fragmented systems into unified ecosystems of sustainable and meaningful growth.