Meet Our Mentors

These Rise! Series graduates are here to support you in your journey.
Esther Rosen
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Goldie Friedman
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Menucha Cohen
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Rochel Leah Weiman

Rochel Leah Weiman is the Director of the Elevation Project’s School for Jewish Meditation. She is also a teacher and meditation facilitator, focusing on experiential tools for personal and spiritual transformation, all based on p’nimius Torah. Her great passion is to facilitate each woman’s personal journey toward a true connection with herself, H-shem, and others. Rochel Leah is also Director of KavConnect Events Intl., arranging retreats and seminars for Jewish women to learn and experience deep connections to Torah and Eretz Yisrael.  To date Rachel Leah has directed two of the global Rise! into your crown Transformational Torah summits for women.  (She is an honorary mentor for 2022).

Email: kavconnect@gmail.com

Baila Vorhand

Baila realized that the driving force behind writing 4 books and giving shiurim (see bailavorhand.com) is a burning desire to raise the feminine into her intellect, or moichin, as Tamar’s students would say. 

We each have our place in the grand process of raising Malchus (the feminine) – i.e. women, as well as the masses – and she says that her goals is specifically to expand her Feminine consciousness; to stuff her with Torah so she can grow into her Daas, enlightened and mature consciousness.  Baila is looking forward to accompanying you on your journey!

Rivka Levron

Rivka Levron, MD, Ph.D., made aliya from America and lives with her husband and children in Betar Illit, Israel. Trained in medicine and neuroscience, Rivka has past experience as a physician in neurosurgery and as a lab mentor for post-college students. Currently, Rivka writes patents for Israeli medical device companies, in addition to teaching biology courses at Michlalah Jerusalem College and Touro College Israel. She can also be found writing articles on her experiences and impressions of US and Israeli society. Having transitioned from scientific studies to Judaic studies, Rivka is fascinated to learn the parallels between the physical world and the spiritual world as taught by Chazal.

Kayla Friedman

Kayla grew up and lives in the chassidish community of Montreal, Canada. She discovered the world of the Nexus School in the summer of 2020 from a Mishpacha article written by fellow Nexus mentor, Baila Vorhand. It was only then that the possibility arose for this holistic, feminine, textual Torah learning, and she discovered a deep yearning for it. From as far back as she could remember, life’s been a journey of constant seeking, of grappling with paradox, of back-to-back-nesira-face-to-face cycles, and of the world of integrating light and
vessel. Meeting these paradigms through a Torah lens has been soul-healing.

Since then, it’s been a ride of catching up on the fundamentals of textual Torah learning and the world of p’nimiyus Torah meets self, alongside continuing to heal
the innermost layers of her relationship to Hashem, Torah, herself, and others. The richness of a community that ‘gets it’, is more than she could dream of.

Having been blessed to receive the delightful and sometimes overwhelming gift of intense Torah learning and speed paradigm-shifting, her heart’s open to holding space for and supporting other women in the circle. She can be reached by email at kfriedman4383@gmail.com

Dina Bier

Dina B. has many years of experience as a teacher and is currently a writer for various magazines. She has done extensive inner healing and has taken a transformational course by Rabbi Avichai Cohen — all about listening to, respecting, and healing the heart and the feminine. Dina is excited to help others through her familiarity with the subconscious terrain.

Email: hueniqueny@gmail.com

Sarah Levine

Sarah Levine has a coaching practice which reflects her approach: calm.clarity.connection. She feels privileged to give women their time to connect and a safe place to explore.

Sarah’s goal here as a Nexus mentor is to help women access their confidence, motivation, and empowerment by harnessing the incredible transformative energy latent in challenge, struggle, and good old curiosity.

Sarah’s rich and diverse background helps her relate to a broad range of women. Her own journey has taken her from an idyllic innocent childhood in Long Island (NY) to the Five Towns, Brooklyn and currently raising beautiful chassidish children in the chassidic community in Staten Island along with her amazing husband. Through it all, Sarah learned to appreciate the diversity that makes each individual incredibly and beautifully unique, to look beyond stereotypes and to accept and even celebrate all parts of ourselves as part of
the growing process.

Sarah shares that being part of Rebbetzin Tamar’s Rise! Series brought her to levels of existence she never thought possible. She believes that if she can do it, you can do it! “Women have an inner yearning desire to be our best but we often get lost along the way. We feel like walking contradictions…the confusion of what the right way is, to be able to learn how to tap into our G-d given femininity through the pure-ness of Torah…wow! Realizing that empowerment and softness can go together but it is knowing when to utilize each that can take us to the next level. These classes enabled me to experience and learnexactly that. To fill my life and relationships with empowerment and privilege yet softness and humbleness. Combine those and you have femininity. An attribute that I thought was way too out of reach. Because I learned and continue to learn how to access that ever-growing crown of femininity, I feel humbled yet privileged to give women their time to connect… to share this beauty with women that are searching!” Sarah can be reached at Yourtimetoconnect@gmail.com

Esther (Estee) Brodt

Estee is a social worker in a private practice in Brooklyn, New York. She aspires to run her lively household with joy and says she has been on a journey of growth for many years. Estee has a decade and a half of experience providing counseling at community schools and consultation on social-emotional development to local Head Start programs. She has also conducted parent-training programs and taught coursework for the Sara Schenirer Bachelors of Social Work Program. Estee, who is always seeking out opportunities for learning and self-development, feels she has found the key through the Nexus School of Transformational Torah – a key to unlocking an explosion of insight and self-actualization. She is passionate about sharing this treasure with women around the world.

Zc Gruen

Zc is a Transformational and Relationship Coach/Mentor. She is a Certified Demartini Values and Trained Demartini Method Facilitator and professional Co-active Trained Life Coach. Zc trained and studied extensively on the subject of healing from codependency, attachment traumas, and enmeshment. Her background also includes nervous system regulation, somatic bodywork, polyvagal theory, and child/adult play therapy. For many years, she has studied Torah, Chasidic works, and Kabbalistic teachings which support and influence her. Zc combines all her knowledge and skills to guide her clients toward authentic healing. Currently, she specializes in coaching professionals and moms through their relationship conflicts and transition challenges. She is inspired and passionate about helping women achieve a balanced, healthy, and fulfilling life, while remaning grounded in their creative, resourceful, and authentic selves. Zc has been married for over 3 decades and takes pride in her role as a wife, mother, and grandmother. Based in Brooklyn, she has clients both locally and internationally. Zc works closely with her clients to create a dynamic relationship that supports a powerful journey and outcome. Zc believes that everyone can live the life they dream, and helps her clients create that.

Email: susan.gruen@yahoo.com

Esther Yenty Noe

Esther Yenty’s vision is to help every woman feel empowered, fulfilled, safe, and loved in both marriage and life. She has gathered wisdom, skills, and techniques from a wide variety of sources throughout her professional life and her journey as a wife, mother, and grandmother. Drawing from this reservoir of knowledge and experience, she has coached women as individuals and in groups for years. Certified through Dina Friedman, one of her specialties is marriage and intimacy counseling — rekindling the connection between wives and their husbands, even after years of neglect, frustration, and resentment. Esther Yenty has seen many wilted marriages blossom through the use of simple but powerful tools. She is passionate about helping women discover the freedom to be themselves.

Email: estherynoemasterylifecoach@gmail.com 

Meira Katz

Meira is a Bais Yaakov educated wife, mother, and grandmother. She has experience in many roles, having worked as a limudei kodesh teacher, a special-needs educator, a seamstress, and a lifeguard/water safety instructor. She currently volunteers as a bodekes and as an EMS Hatzalah dispatcher. On the side, she runs a weekly personal-growth vaad based on the teachings of Igeres HaRamban through Neve-PTI (a branch of Neve- Yerushalayim) in her hometown, Passaic, NJ. In the perfect combination of all her training and life experience, Meira has recently started water-phobia coaching, specifically for women with mikva anxiety. She is eager to help facilitate other women’s learning and incorporating the lessons taught at The Nexus.

Email: katzmeira@gmail.com

Devorah Talia Gordon

Devorah Talia is a wife and mother who lives in Los Angeles but whose heart is in Eretz Yisroel. She is a writer, editor, and creative writing teacher. Her passion is writing fiction and particularly writing about women’s spiritual and emotional journeys. She teaches creative writing workshops for Jewish women, young adults, and preteens, encouraging them to tell their stories (or make up great ones!)

While she enjoys text-based learning and was primarily educated by Litvish teachers who taught her halacha, mussar, and machshava, she is thrilled to be learning at the Nexus School and rediscovering the deep Torah concepts that first inspired her to become religious over twenty-five years ago in Yerushalayim. Now freshly reawakened, she’s excited to be a part of this Transformational Torah as she continues to learn and integrate the ideas.

Devorah Talia practices yoga regularly and enjoys hiking, baking challah, and blending smoothies. Oh, and soup – she makes a lot of soup for her mishpacha!

She looks forward to connecting with you in her role as a mentor

Devorah Rus Gallor
Devorah Rus is a retired Judaic studies teacher who has taught people from preschool through high school, as well as womens’ study groups. She also served as a school principal for 5 years. She lives with her husband and their youngest son, a 24 year old with developmental disabilities. His siblings range in age from 26-44 years old and they have, Baruch Hashem, many grandchildren as well. Devorah Rus is very excited to be a mentor in the Nexus program. Rebbetzin Tamar’s teachings have been very meaningful in her own life, and it is immensely rewarding to continue processing them with other women who strive for a real, applicable connection with p’nimius haTorah, and look to share their growth with other women who also feel a stirring within themselves to reach for their highest feminine potential as we get closer to the times of the Geulah. She is looking forward to getting to know each of you, and to offering what support she can as we continue our journey together.
Sarah Prijs

Sarah is a connected, holistic-hearted, deep-feeling, non-judgmental soul who loves helping people access their own inner light, delight, and transformation through Torah. She holds a degree in psychology and has experience working in mental health clinics during her studies. Sarah has been through her own journey – coming from a Torah world strongly connected to emes, she then embarked on a search to find inner healing in Torah. This search led her to discover her deep love for the early works of Chassidus, and her inner home in the Torah of Rebbe Nachman and Rav Kook. She currently lives in Yerushalayim and teaches in Shiviti of Bat Ayin and other midrashot. Sarah enjoys creating space for women to come together, share, sing and be themselves. She also teaches Jewish meditation involving practical meditation work. Her current work in healing dovetails with her teaching – she helps her friends and students to process blocks and shifts through the techniques brought down in Chassidut.

Chaya Breindy Kenigsberg

Chaya Breindy’s dream is to help Jewish women access steadiness, balance, growth, purpose, fulfillment, nurture and connection through the deep wisdom and sweet, nourishing waters of Torah. Aside from having big dreams, Chaya Breindy has an unquenchable thirst for learning and Truth. This has kept her in the learning field as a student, teacher, author, speaker, principal and professionally trained parent coach and life coach. While her training has given her skills and experience in helping women step into their potential, being a mother of seven beautiful children k”ah is the biggest (most humbling!) learning experience of all.  Chaya Breindy’s learning journey has taken her on a roundabout route to rediscovering her passion and love for Torah, especially the incredible light and clarity in presentation of the hidden Torah by Chassidic sources. A new, transformative but familiar world opened for her through classic and contemporary Chassidic texts, classes and shiurim. This is why she is grateful for the opportunity to be a Nexus mentor and help the incredible Nexus women achieve clarity and growth through Rebbetzin Taback’s profound and life-changing classes.

Contact kenigsbergcb@gmail.com.

reina
Reina Weiss

Reina lives in Boro Park, Brooklyn, NY, and is the mother of 6 young children. She taught preschool for eight years and created a Social-Emotional Middos Program specially designed for this age group. Currently, she works with principals and mentors teachers on implementing these concepts in their schools and classrooms. Reina’s journey in understanding the feminine value and role started with deep emotion, pain, and questions. She researched and listened to everything on this topic that she had access to. With a longing for answers, lots of prayer, and hashgacha, she reached Rebbetzin Devorah Fastag, author of “The Moon’s Lost Light,” who patiently provided her with the answers she sought. From there she read Miriam Kosman’s “Circle, Arrow, Spiral” and explored the definition of what the feminine is (and, just as important, what it isn’t). Reina has continued to grow with the Nexus community to a deeper and more practical understanding of the past, present, and future of the Feminine Soul. She is appreciative of having Rebbetzin Tamar Taback as a leader in her learning and her deepest desire is to be zoche to Hashem with emes and simcha in every facet of her life.

Gina Tonkonog

Gina is a yoga teacher, kallah teacher, and RN. She has studied and taught Ayurveda. With this background, she is passionate about learning and teaching the Torah perspective about women’s role and mission. After extensive Torah study in seminary and general study in mainstream colleges, she believes that there is much work to do in the current world of women and Torah. Through her learning with Rebetzin Tamar Taback, she has learned how to combine the right information, in the right way and, at the right time for her students, and is still learning just how expansive that information is. Gina hopes to pass that information, ability, and confidence along as she grows herself, with everyone connected and growing together.

Chaya Z.

Chaya is an eternal seeker of truth and an ongoing student of Torah teaching. While her life journey has been filled with challenges, she never stops looking for ways to grow and reach her deepest potential.  With her deep compassion and genuine care for every human being, she is a source of light and strength for the many women of every age and stage who turn to her for guidance and support. With her endless empathy and ability to relate to every struggle – Chaya’s expansive heart is a sacred oasis that allows so many women to feel accepted and seen when they interact with her. Chaya’s commitment to her own growth is infectious and she is excited to reach out to women in the Nexus community, spreading love, knowledge, and warmth with others on their own journey. 

Ziporah Zien

Happily Married for more than 50 years, Ziporah is a mother of 6 happily married children, a grandmother of upwards of 3 minyanim, and a great grandmother of 2.
Raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in Catholic family of ten children, Ziporah has been a lifelong singer in choirs, solo, and professionally in Europe for 10 years. She converted to Judaism in 1984 and made aliyah in 1988 with 4 children. 2 more children born in Israel. Ziporah taught Music and English in Haifa Beit YaakovTeachers Seminary from 1991 – 2011 and in Darchei Rachel, Jerusalem 2001 – 2013.

She is consistently committed to learning and enriching her knowledge of the Torah and of the expression of her love and commitment to Judaism. Ziporah is a published (former English publication of the Yated Ne’eman in Eretz Israel) poetess and writer from 2001 until its closing. She is now enjoying retirement and looking to share the journey with other seekers of truth and Torah light.

Shaindel Leanse

Shaindel is a college graduate who grew up with sparse traditional Judaism. At age 28 she married and started her family, as well as embarking on an extraordinary journey of discovery – a journey toward her true essence as a Jewish Woman. As she continued to build her family, she dived deep into Chassidut and healing. She has done inner work with Miriam Millhauser, Rabbi Aryeh Nivin, Chana Rachel Shusterman, Rabbi Reuvain Wolf, and Brocha Lipshitz. Revealing her inner light through the teachings of our Torah is her greatest pleasure, and Shaindel loves to share this with all Jewish women. Shaindel continues rising “into her crown”, learning the language of Geula and revealing the King’s beautiful garden in this world.

Email: jodibleanse@gmail.com

Course Breakdown
Rise Into Your Highest Femininity: The Complete Feminine Journey
Embark on a year-long journey where you’ll dive into the depths of your soul, and learn how to inject spirituality into the most mundane, challenging and overwhelming aspects of your life. This course is split up into 4 semesters over the year.
Rise Into Your Femininity: The Foundations
A Journey with Chava
A 9 part pre recorded series. (Included in Option 1)
Discover a cosmic blueprint to understand yourself, your relationships and your deepest potential.

This course is perfect for you if:
you sense that you have an incredible calling within you and you want to step into your feminine power through Torah.
Rise Into Your Marriage: Modern Marriage, Ancient Truths
A Journey with Sarah
A 7 part live series (recording will be available)
Your (current or future) marriage has the potential to be a vessel of unlimited G-dliness.  As you evolve, your relationships must too. Get the script here.

This course is perfect for you if:
You are seeking a practical and profound roadmap to relationship through the deepest of spiritual models.
Rise Into Prayer: The Master-key to Feminine Power
A Journey with Rivka
A 7 part live/ pre-recorded series (recording will be available)
Deepen your paradigms and widen your frames even more as the Imahot show us the way to our highest selves.  

This course is perfect for you if:
You want deepen your relationship models and learn the essential art of feminine prayer.
Rise Into YourSELF:
Finding Inner Harmony
A Journey with Rachel & Leah
A 7 part live series (recording will be available)
Within every woman lives two women. We feel them tugging in different directions, yet we come into a profound inner peace when we allow them to become friends.

This course is perfect for you if:
You want to discover two different parts of your essential feminine self and bring them into balance and harmony in your life.
Plus bonuses for each course!