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Rabbi Shir Meira Feit is an intuitive, gifted, and accomplished guide with decades of experience meeting others at the dynamic edge of spiritual emergence.
Wherever you may be on your journey, Shir can join you with compassion, curiosity, and humor.
Shir is a circle-maker, song carrier, award-winning composer*, embodied ritualist, and multimedia designer.
For over two decades, Shir has explored the growing edge of Jewish Renewal, a trans-denominational, ecumenical, mystical approach to Judaism.
Shir studies and practices spiritual accompaniment, contemplative arts, interpersonal neurobiology, somatic psychology, world mysticisms, neuroqueer theory, digital design, artificial intelligence, and medicine music.
After hours, Shir can be found DJing, dancing, playing word games, inscribing melodies, listening to the rain, dreaming with the night sky, and trying not to buy any more books.
Set up a call to explore how 1:1 counsel work with me will support you, wherever you are on your journey.
Shir Meira Feit and family on the Mahicannituck — "the river that flows both ways" — known today as the Hudson River.
Professional Bio
Rabbi Shir Meira Feit is a musician, composer, ritual facilitator, and spiritual director. Shir has released several solo and collaborative albums of Jewish mystical music and has facilitated countless circles of communal ritual prayer and song, helping people of all backgrounds connect with their inner wisdom and joy.
Shir worked as a serial spiritual entrepreneur for over twenty years. They co-founded the Kol Zimrah independent minyan; was the Creative and Music Director for Romemu, New York City’s largest Renewal synagogue; served as Director of Engagement at ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal; and founded the Kol Hai: Hudson Valley Jewish Renewal spiritual community in New Paltz, New York. Today, Shir offers their teachings as an independent educator and musician and as a spiritual director, helping others to grow and flourish at the dynamic edge of spiritual emergence.
Shir received rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and the ALEPH Ordination Program and is a former Wexner Graduate Fellow. Shir is also a member of the Zen Peacemakers and served as council facilitator and clergy for five years’ Bearing Witness Retreats in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In the last several years, Shir’s work and life have been heavily influenced by the spiritual practice of parenting, interpersonal neurobiology, somatic psychology, neuroqueer theory, artificial intelligence, and the wisdom of plant medicines. Shir lives with their partner and three children in the ancestral lands of the Esopus band of the Lenape Peoples, today known as New York’s Hudson Valley.
Short Bio
Rabbi Shir Meira Feit is a musician, composer, ritual facilitator, and spiritual director. They have released several solo and collaborative albums of sacred music and has facilitated countless circles of communal ritual and song, helping people of all backgrounds connect with their inner wisdom and joy. Shir worked as a serial spiritual entrepreneur for twenty years in the Jewish Renewal movement, and in the Zen peacemakers Order, co-facilitating their Bearing Witness Retreats in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Today, Shir offers their teachings as an independent educator and musician and as a spiritual director, helping others to grow and flourish at the dynamic edge of spiritual emergence. In the last several years, Shir’s work and life have been heavily influenced by the spiritual practice of parenting three children, interpersonal neurobiology, somatic psychology, neuroqueer theory, artificial intelligence, and the wisdom of plant medicines. They live with their family in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Selected Professional Affiliations
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Shir founded Kol Hai: Hudson Valley Jewish Renewal and led the organization for seven years.
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Shir served as both Musical and Creative Director of Romemu, NYC’s flagship and Judaism’s largest Renewal synagogue, under the guidance of Rabbi David Ingber.
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Shir received Rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and the AOP in 2020. Shir’s Senior Teshuva focused on Digital Citizenship and Spiritual Education. Shir also briefly served as ALEPH’s Creative Director and was faculty of the Davvenen Leadership Training Institute. Shir currently serves the ALEPH Ordination Program as a Director of Studies (DOS) for Rabbinical Candidates.
What’s in a name?
I’ve changed my name. More than once. It might happen again. Here are some of the iterations.
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My mother was pretty gender expansive when she was considering my name in utero. My sex didn’t matter: if I was dark-haired, I‘d be named Sasha. If light-haired, I’d be Sam. I was born a towhead, so my father’s father’s name was honored.
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My birth certificate only included my father’s last name but I took it upon myself, starting in Second Grade, to hyphenate and include my mother’s lineage.
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I wasn’t given a Hebrew name at birth so when it was time for my Bar Mitzvah we needed to craft one. As far as we could tell my grandfathers Yiddish names were Shaya and Yankel. Shaya is close to Shir — which means “song” or “poem” — and Yankel is the Yiddish version of Yaakov. Since I was already an avid tween poet and songwriter, it was a fitting name to be called to the Torah for the first time.
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“Is it Shir or Shir-Yaakov?” I was asked a million times and I was never sure. I added one of my animal totems to my growing list of monikers — Ariel/אריאל means “lion of God” — as well as trying to add some grounding energy in the form of Moriah/מוריה, the “Mountain of Seeing.” This name is also an acronym combining the three Mother Letters אמ׳׳ש — fire, water, and earth.
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My teacher Hawks Brother gave me a Lakota name which means “the rain she is my sister.” This naming gives me one of the most deeply experienced senses of feeling seen that I have ever known.
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When the Russian invasion of Ukraine began I felt the churning pain of ancestral lands suffering under war. In the Yad Vashem testimonial books, I discovered extended family using the “sz” spelling convention. This branch of my family hailed from Soshnykiv, Kyivs'ka oblast, Skalat, Ternopil's'ka oblast, Tarnoruda, Khmel'nyts'ka oblast, and Radomyshl', Zhytomyrs'ka oblast, Ukraine.
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When uncovering my autistic and nonbinary identities, the gender and struggle of the Yaakov part of my name felt constricting. Two of my grandfathers were named Meir. So the genderqueer juxtaposition of Shir (masc.) with Meira (fem.) felt like an elevation and direction to embrace.