Our Vision

A more deeply connected, just, and compassionate world in which Jewish spiritual practice, personal transformation, and connection with The Sacred drive social change.

The Need

Amidst societal and environmental turmoil and rising antisemitism, those working to grow a more just world are facing burnout, despair, and increased division in our movements and communities. They are in need of tools, practices, and frameworks to find grounding, build connection, and grow resilience for our many life-long fights for justice.

What is Mussar?

Mussar is a millenia-old genre of Jewish wisdom and practice that helps people bridge the gap between ethical ideals and actual human behavior and action in the world. Mussar is a practical, relevant spiritual discipline that understands everyday, mundane life as a workshop for holiness. Kirva makes this wisdom tradition accessible to contemporary social activists, merging Tikkun Atzmi/self-development with Tikkun Olam/social change, helping practitioners to align values with behavior on the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and communal levels.

What is Chassidut?

Chassidut refers to the spiritual revival that swept Eastern European Jewry in the mid-18th century and still resonates strongly today. Features of Chassidut include living with joy, cultivating awareness of holiness in mundane, daily life, storytelling, dancing, singing, learning from inspired teachers and developing a direct relationship with God. Kirva draws mostly from the lineage of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (d. 1810, Ukraine), which emphasizes joy, yearning, unscripted conversations with God, and making a rigorous discipline of finding good in oneself and others. Kirva employs these spiritual disciplines to support the resilience, sense of connection, and motivation of activists working on the front lines of social change.

Our Values

Rooted in Jewish ancestral wisdom, our values are the driving force behind our efforts to weave spiritual practice with action towards a more just and compassionate future for all.

KIRVA (Closeness): Interconnection of All Life

All of creation exists in a web of connection and interdependence. Knowing this reality at an embodied, felt level helps create the conditions for collective liberation.

B’TSELEM ELOHIM: All Are Made in the Divine Image

All people are unique, sacred, and of infinite and equal value. The world we seek reflects this truth.

RATZON (Desire): Cultivating Deep Yearning

Our yearning for connection and well-being—for ourselves, each other, and the planet—is a necessary spiritual force that fuels justice work.

TORAH & AVODAH (Spiritual Practice): Practice is Central to our Social Justice Commitment

We are grounded in the ancestral wisdom of Torah, Mussar, and Chassidut, and we bring this learning into our lives through consistent spiritual practice. This sustains our justice work and shapes the equitable, healing communities we seek to build.

BRIT (Sacred Relationship): Transforming Ourselves with Community

Rooted in covenant with HaShem, we build communities grounded in trust, care, and reciprocity. In relationship with one another and the Divine, we engage in the ongoing work of personal and collective transformation.

TZEDEK (Justice): Balance of Care

When power is used to dominate, it becomes idolatry—placing the self above the Divine. Justice calls us to restore balance, practice equity, and build relationships rooted in “power-with,” not “power-over.”

ANAVAH (Humility): Right-Sized

We walk with humility—acknowledging where we fall short and recommitting to our values as ongoing spiritual practice.

Our Theory of Change

We believe that personal and spiritual transformation, grounded in Jewish wisdom and practice, strengthens people and communities working toward a more just world. Individuals and communities need spiritual tools and collective practices to nourish resilience, ground vision, and sustain long-term liberatory engagement. This is best accomplished in the context of learning communities. In order to create successful learning communities, internal champions are needed.

By creating and nurturing learning communities, as well as supporting champions of those spaces, we can help grow an ever-widening, more resilient, and visionary movement of spiritually rooted justice work.

Visual representation of Kirva's Theory of Change, which shows our three main strategies as a tree. Jewish Wisdom (Mussar and Chassidut) are at the roots, champions are the base/trunk of the tree, with Learning communities as the leaves, fruit, and crown of the tree.

Meet The Team

Rabbi David Jaffe

Founder & Executive Director

Rabbi David Jaffe is the Founder and Executive Director of Kirva and the author of Changing the World from the Inside Out: A Jewish Approach to Personal and Social Change, which won the National Jewish Book Award for Contemporary Jewish life. His teaching, writing, organizing, and consulting explore the intersection of moral and spiritual development and ethical action in the world. He teaches Mussar (applied Jewish ethics) and Jewish spiritual wisdom widely throughout North America with organizational and social change leaders, educators and spiritual seekers of all ages. David was a founding board member of Avodah: The Jewish Service Corps and helped start the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, an IAF affiliate. He has a masters in social work from Columbia University and private rabbinic ordination from Israel. He served as a senior faculty member with the Mussar Institute, a visiting research fellow at Boston University and the Pardes Institute, and adjunct faculty at the Hebrew College Rabbinical School. David serves as the Co-President of the Board of Directors of the Brockton Interfaith Community and lives with his family in Sharon, MA.

Yehudah Webster

Program Director & Faculty

Spiritual activist and community organizer Yehudah Webster works to animate and integrate anti-racist behaviors and culture in communities, supporting the collective organizing, advocacy and direct service efforts to dismantle racism systemically. As Senior Faculty of Kirva, directing their Dismantling Racism from the Inside Out Program, Yehudah equips communities with the daily concrete spiritual tools of Mussar to subvert racism within ourselves and others through facilitating workshops, consulting with organizations, and building a community of anti-racist practice. Yehudah is a graduate of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice’s Grace Paley Organizing Fellowship, Bend the Arc’s Selah Leadership Program, Kirva’s Ovdim Fellowship, and a recipient of both the Pomegranate Prize through the Covenant Foundation as well as the Beerman Foundation Fellows for Peace and Justice Award. Yehudah currently serves on the board of JOIN for Justice, The Shalom Center, and Bend the Arc.

Sam Fine

Communications and Development Director

Sam Fine is the Communications and Development Director at Kirva, based in Los Angeles. She is a storyteller, designer, artist, fundraiser, and organizer, inspired by art's transformative ability to influence social movements and drive change. Sam began organizing in 2016 with IfNotNow, and has continued using art and storytelling as a tool within many Jewish organizing spaces. She has worked to develop communications strategies, visual design, and art for many organizations, including Bend the Arc, IfNotNow, In These Times, Jewish Currents, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, JQ International, Never Again Action, Tikkun Olam Productions, The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, and T’ruah.

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Dan Gelbtuch

Organizing Director

Dan Gelbtuch was born and grew up with his three siblings in Boston, Massachusetts, and was raised in Greater Boston's Jewish Community. He studied history and religion at Wesleyan University and received a Master's in Education from Queens College. Dan taught for three years in the New York City public school system, focusing on social movements. He returned to Boston in 2007 to begin the Jewish Organizing Initiative (JOIN) ,where he received community organizing training and began his career as a youth organizer at Dorchester Bay Youth Force. During his ten years as the Youth Force Director, Dan co-founded the Youth Jobs Coalition. Most recently, he has been interested in how to connect his spiritual path and his organizing work. Dan is currently exploring this and other key questions through his work at both Kirva and Episcopal City Mission. Dan is the lead organizer for Kirva. He focuses his time on program development and program support. He is especially excited about the work he is doing in partnership with Dayenu to build a curriculum that supports Jewish climate justice activists and the work he is doing as part of our Dismantling Racism from the Inside Out project to bring that curriculum to more Jewish social justice organizations.

Rabbi Mimi Micner

Guest Teacher

Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife

Guest Teacher

Rabbi Koach Baruch Frazier,
Au.D.

Guest Teacher, Facilitator

Rabbi Lauren Tuchman

Program Director & Teacher

Funding Partners

Changing the World from the Inside Out

Rabbi David Jaffe’s award-winning book, Changing the World from the Inside Out, is a foundational resource for Kirva’s work. Drawing on Mussar, Chassidut, and years of experience in both spiritual practice and community organizing, Rabbi Jaffe offers a compelling guide for aligning our inner lives with our work for justice. Whether you're a longtime activist or new to spiritual practice, this book provides practical tools and deep wisdom to help you show up with integrity, compassion, and resilience.

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