2024 Silent Retreat

“Life is either an absurdity or a mystery”.

A quote by St. Rafaela Mary, for whom the retreat center we will be using is named.

Five Day Silent Retreat

June 16th to 21st, 2024

St. Rafaela Retreat Center

Haverford, Pa

with Shoshana Cooper, Miriam Eisenberger, Rabbi Shir Feit

This years retreat will continue to look at what it means to authentically be ourselves by using silence and meditation to explore what our moments of living truly reveal to each of us.

Rabbi Shir will be doing a contemplative davening(prayer) and music session each morning. Miriam and Shoshana will be offering a meditation instruction session each afternoon. There will be evening talks each night. Times will be made available to meet individually and in small groups with the guides.

This retreat will be offered only once in 2024. There is a 30 person maximum at the retreat.

A deposit of $200 is required with registration except for scholarship participants. Please register via email with Shoshana to be sure of availability of the room you want and get verification from her before sending your deposit. Please send deposit checks to Shoshana at PO Box 6142 Jensen Beach FL 34957 or via Venmo. Shoshana will give that Venmo address via email.

Refunds (minus a $50 fee) are possible for cancellations up to one month before the start of the retreat. Refunds less than one month before the retreat are dependent on someone filling the emptied space. The full cost of the retreat must be paid in full by May 31st. The retreat center demands payment two weeks ahead of the retreat so if one needs to make a cancellation at the last minute and there is no one to fill that space we are sorry but we will be unable to return the payment.

There are 4 partial scholarships available for this retreat. The cost for a scholarship recipient will be $200. Scholarship recipients will share a double room. These will be given out in a lottery system. Please apply for these via Shoshana at coopertea99@yahoo.com.

ACCOMMODATIONS FOR ST RAFEALA RETREAT CENTER in Haverford, PA near Philadelphia, which includes all meals from Sunday dinner thru Friday lunch.

Single Rooms with shared bath. $775

Double Room with shared bath. $600 per person

We look forward to this retreat and hope you will join us. Silence is a treasure and gift to both oneself and those we share our lives with.

If you are interested or have further questions please contact Shoshana at coopertea99@yahoo.com

Background Information About Silent Retreats

A silent retreat is one of the essential and most important practices for any spiritual aspirant. Each spiritual discipline and many teachers have unique practices, schedules, relationships between the teachers and students along with other nuances of the training. The retreats we offer have their own flavor.

Mindfulness meditation is frequently learned to find a way to come to some calm and balance in one's everyday life.  It is also a phenomenal path to a complete human transformation from a thought obscured person to one who is clear minded.  The journey for most is arduous, humbling and incredibly valuable.  Upon awakening one must encounter everything in a way that is awesome in its magnitude and far beyond the current human preoccupation of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.

This retreat offers a path and brings guidance and collaboration to those who have chosen this journey.   It assumes that a strong foundation of ethics and values has already been learned and integrated.   The skills needed for this stage are:   1. concentration capacity and discipline   2. powerful mindfulness training practices     3. A thinking mind that can be released into stillness and can grow in that ability in more and more complex engagements.  This final skill and stage is not as well mapped as the earlier skills.  So collaboration with others can be very helpful to understand some of the commonalities but also the uniqueness that happens in this stage.

On our retreats we emphasize silence.    Not every part of the day is silent,  we actually chant and sing/pray together every morning.  In some instruction periods, questions or comments are invited from the participants.  Retreatants have opportunities to engage teachers, either one-on-one or in small groups.  In our silence we are committed to not engage one another on a social level. We do not have mundane conversations. We do not greet one another verbally. Why is this so important? The answer is that something happens deep within each of us when we maintain an outer silence as described. An inner silence for practitioners on our retreats arises after a few days. It is a spaciousness that makes itself known on a very deep level. We experience an ease that is uniquely satisfying and deeply content on some kind of soul level that is inexplicable. We begin to feel profoundly connected with others around us, even though we are not speaking. And we begin to experience a fascinating integration with our surroundings, nature, life.

It is true that initially, for the first few days, the experience may feel a bit strange. We are social beings. But we are also very adaptable and soon we begin to realize the extraordinary wonder of the possibility of a moment-to-moment connection with what is happening right now--the magic and mystery of the unfolding NOW. When this happens, the silence becomes a precious gift. Indeed, on our retreats, after the third or fourth day, retreatants love the silence so much they want it to last as long as possible.

The fees for retreats are for room and board only. There is no tuition for teachers, however, free will donations for teachers are asked for and welcomed at the end of each retreat. Normally tuition fees run from $300 to $1000 for a 5 day retreat. We work on a donation system so that that those who can pay more and those who cannot pay less. It has worked out fairly for over 25 years.