top of page
Purim High Council Logo

Connect to the spiritual practices of the Purim High Council throughout the year

Integrate theSuperconscious Lightsof Purimin Joyful Community
purim night painting

Highest Spiritual Event of the Year

This Prayer, Meditation, and Movement Happening on Purim has evolved into an extraordinary opportunity for women to tap into the very essence of Purim—the superconscious lights (רדל"א) that were unlocked by Esther and are now uniquely available on “Esther’s day” (ie, Purim).

For thirty-two years this has been Sarah Yehudit Schneider’s Purim party. However, more and more women, both locally and internationally, have desired access to this unique spiritual event.

We are making it as easy as possible for you to make a Purim High Council in your own community, with your circle of friends in this joyful, meaningful, inspiring, redemptive, feminine Purim expression.

HOW CAN I BE A PART OF THIS AWESOME EVENT?!

JOIN AN EVENT

Miriam the prophetess in embodied dance, bracha-lavee.com

Ensure that your Purim is spiritual, inspiring, nourishing and transformative as you join women in your community and around the world, in person or on Zoom.  Feel enlivened by the redemptive power of women coming together in this feminine Purim expression. 

HOST AN EVENT

Following in Queen Esther's footsteps, yoramraanan.com

Heed the call and bring this worldwide women's redemptive Purim experience to your community.  Whether you host in your home or at a community center, for a group of three or 30, it’s easier, and more powerful, than you might think.

DONATE NOW

Women support each other

Last year, the Purim High Council reached hundreds of women in 40 communities spanning five continents.  This year, please support our efforts to reach, please G!d, thousands of women and hasten our personal and collective redemption. 

TESTIMONIALS

“It was so heartwarming to witness the deep yearning women have for connection with the light of Purim. Many shared how this transformed their whole Purim day. It was soulful, connected, full of love and holiness.”

Learn the Spiritual Practices that Queen Esther Used to Save the Jewish People 

Spiritual practice that Queen Esther used to save the day and make up the Purim High Council

A Taste of Sarah Yehudit Schneider's Purim High Council

PURIM HIGH COUNCIL
-
AROUND THE WORLD

Don't see a gathering in your area, don’t despair! 

Consider HOSTING  one yourself or with a friend!  You can do it! 

Join us for Sarah Yehudit Schneider's Shushan Purim High Council on Zoom.
Monday, March 25  6:00pm Israel / 4:00pm UK / 12:00pm EST / 9:00am PST
 

Questions?

Please thoroughly read the Q&A on the Join and Host an Event pages.  If you still have any questions or comments, we would love to hear from you

Thanks for submitting!

Purim High Council Over the Years

This High Council Women’s Prayer, Meditation, and Movement Happening on Purim has evolved over a period of about 32 years. It has gone through countless changes and paradigm shifts. The only thing that remains from its early years is the intention behind it: The goal of harnessing the powerful lights available on Purim, that were unlocked by Esther (a woman), and to direct them toward good, healing and mashiach now.

The people that have been advisors, actors and enactors over the years are too numerous to mention. For the past (about) six years the format has stabilized and a group formed that is dedicated to empowering the Purim ritual by rehearsing its practices throughout the year. Our goal is to deepen our connection to these prayer and meditation modalities in order to serve, on Purim, as pole-holders who (behind the scenes), hold the space, ground the lights, and emanate a vibration that induces others to drop in more deeply than they otherwise could.

Our Purim Happening (that evolved into the High Council) started as an adaptation of a Chassidic tradition:

On Purim, the “Shpola Zeide” (a disciple of the Baal Shem Tov) would organize a special game. Certain chassidim, carefully chosen and directed by him, would disguise themselves, one as the “King of Purim,” the others as his princes and counselors. They would sit together in solemn session, in counsel or judgment, discussing weighty matters, all the time making resolutions and decisions. Sometimes the “Zeide” himself took part in the masquerade. The chassidim say that these games had a powerful effect on the world with repercussions throughout the heavens. They say that these Purim edicts were potent to avert doom or the threat of doom decreed for Israel. But I could never get comfortable with issuing decrees. Prayer, yes; decrees, no. I just can’t imagine that I would ever know better than HaShem what is the most spiritually productive outcome in this moment. And I just can’t imagine that Hashem would ever choose anything less than the most spiritually productive option. The very definition of G-d (it seems to me) is that He/She/It will always choose the gentlest way that could possibly be designed to bring about our next step in personal and spiritual development given our current state of consciousness. Consequently, from my I-center, that last clause, “given our current state of consciousness” is the place to make a difference. I do not believe that insisting on a different outcome without changing the current state of consciousness will ultimately produce a better result. And I also cannot imagine that improving the present state of consciousness will not automatically, yes, generate a positive effect (and also, yes, accelerate the answering of our prayer). And so, that becomes the focus of our Purim ritual, which also happens to be timely since the very essence of Purim is about altering consciousness as evidenced by its highly “unorthodox” obligation of inebriation. ​The name, High Council, refers to the entire group of women who gather on Purim to participate in the ritual. Sarah Yehudit Schneider is the formulator of the High Council. The inner circle of dedicated High Counselors who (metaphorically) do the heavy lifting are (in alphabetical order): Rivka Stauber, Meira Raanan, Malka Sima Pais, Yaffa Miller, Nomi Goldberg, Evie Gottleib, Yehudit Friedman, Chaya Sarah Brand-Farkas. ​The nusach of the High Council was reviewed by a Rav and received a yashar kokhekh.

Purim High Council Team

Sarah Yehudit Schneider

Founding Director of A Still Small Voice

Author

Creator of the Purim High Council 

Creator of the Moonlit Circle's Spiritual Path

Sarah Yehudit Schneider, creator of the Purim High Council

Sarah (Susan) Yehudit Schneider is one of our generations’ most unique and vibrant voices. She is recognized by a wide range of Torah scholars, spiritual seekers, teachers and students as an authentic embodiment of Torah learning and living. Her ability to translate abstract and complex concepts into an eloquent and common language as well as her deeply personal and prayerful approach to study, teaching, counseling and living has endeared many to her. Her vital contribution to Torah scholarship, women’s Torah, and the Jewish people as a whole continues to grow daily.

Sarah Yehudit has pursued the study and practice of religion, meditation, and comparative mysticism since the early seventies, and since 1981 has lived in Jerusalem and followed an Orthodox path of Jewish observance. She studied at Neve Yerushalayim where she completed the advanced learning program. She wrote and studied privately with Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, one of our generations’ most respected teachers of Chassidut and Kabbala. Before immigrating to Israel she received her bachelor’s degree in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from the University of Colorado in Boulder and worked as laboratory researcher for Celestial Seasonings Herb Tea Company. ​​She is the founding director of A Still Small Voice, a correspondence school that has enrolled hundreds of students since its inception in 1991. The school provides weekly teachings in classic Jewish wisdom to subscribers around the world. She is the founder of The Golden Thread, a homeopathic remedy based on Torah and kabbalistic sources. Sarah also hosts Meditation Retreats, guiding participants through traditional Jewish meditative practices and instructs them on how to harness the holy lights of Shabbat for healing and transformation. She has recently produced a series of Illustrated Video Teachings on Jewish Meditation that makes these teachings available to a wider audience.  They can be viewed in the video section of this website.   ​She is the Director of the Purim High Council Project which is offering women from all over the world an uplifting and game-changing Meditation, Prayer, and Movement Happening on Purim, for the sake of healing, transformation, and Mashiach now.  She is also the Spiritual Advisor and author of the Torah teachings that make up the core curriculum of the Moonlit Circle. Sarah Yehudit writes and teaches in close cooperation with leading rabbanim and outreach professionals in Jerusalem. She has written Eating As Tikun, Purim Bursts, Purim Bursts 2, Kabbalistic Writings on the Nature of Masculine and Feminine, Evolutionary Creationism and You Are What You Hate and has published four journal articles in B’Or HaTorah called “The Evolving Feminine”, “Evolution, Form, and Consciousness,” “The Underside of Creative Expression,” and “The Daughters of Tslafchad, Toward a Methodology of Attitude around Women’s Issues.” An expanded version of this last article appears in the anthology, “Torah of the Mothers,” edited by Elper/Handelman, and published by Urim Press. She has also lectured and taught extensively at various institutions and conferences throughout Israel and the US. Sarah Schneider currently resides in Jerusalem’s Old City where she spends her days studying, writing and teaching (both to groups and individuals).

Malka Sima Pais

Registered Somatic and Movement Therapist
Certified Shake Your Soul Dance Facilitator 

Outreach Coordinator for the Purim High Council Project  

Director and Lead Educator of Moonlit Circle

Malka Sima

Malka Sima invites women to walk on a healing path together. Through laughter and tears, they discover heart-to-heart connection and open the doors to more serenity, vibrancy, and joy.

 

Her intuitive nature and spiritual practice, based on the inner dimensions of the Torah, guide her practice.  She helps you to tune into your body and soul’s wisdom, your strengths and places of brokenness, your yearnings and desires, and empower what’s needed to access more calm, clarity, and confidence in your everyday moments.

She focused her studies at Cornell University on grassroots, community building.  She now offers a compassionate, safe space for women in group workshops, as well as in one-on-one somatic therapy sessions.  She empowers women to come into alignment with their authentic self and come into profound relationship with themselves, others, and Hashem.

 

Her ongoing Moonlit Circle classes and workshops were created to help women come alive through their spiritual practice in a way that touches core.  She combines her knowledge of neuroscience and body-centered psychotherapy with the Jewish practices of meditation, prayer, and movement that were used by Queen Esther and are the foundation of the Purim High Council. 

Chana Vered Coren

Project Coordinator and Lead Educator of Moonlit Circle
Project Coordinator of the Purim High Council Project
Creator of My Jewish Soulmate.com
Creator of Geu.la

Chana Vered

Chana Vered is a passionate Torah Educator, Inspirational Speaker and Spiritual Guide, weaving her love of  Jewish wisdom into her post-modern life as a wife, mother, student and teacher. 

Chana Vered offers practical, relevant and inspiring tools for healing, growth and transformation drawn from the Hebrew Calendar. She runs monthly gatherings for women, combining Torah teachings with energy healing meditations.

Chana Vered is the creator of www.myjewishsoulmate.com a free online dating platform for Global Jewish singles and www.geu.la - An online directory of Transformational Torah classes for today’s spiritually seeking souls.

To access Chana Vered's offerings you can follow her on Instagram (@jewess_on_a_journey), Facebook and Twitter (Chana Vered). and also join her admin-send-only Whatsapp group:

https://chat.whatsapp.com/HvhQryFBcJa2NvJuw9YDm6

Giving Thanks!

With so much gratitude to Hashem Yitbarach and the myriad of women, too many to name, who have been a part of the Purim High Council over the years and who have made it possible to reach you. Special thanks go out to Meira Raanan, Evy Gottlieb, Yaffa Miller, Bluma Sheindl Bank, Goldie Michal Weltscher, Kayla Friedman, Chaya Sara Singer, Rivka Adina Kanush, Mateh Esther Brownstein, Elana Langer, Leah Rothkopf, Antke, and Tziona Achishena and Chava Rachel Saban.

 

Paintings by:

yoramraanan.combracha-lavee.com

If you recognize the artist of a painting not credited, please let us know

Logo and social media:  Sara Mazal HaLevi / Indigo

©2024 Malka Sima. Designed by EnayaWeb

bottom of page