Undertorah: An Earth-Based Kabbalah of Dreams (Speculative Theology)

About the Author
Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, is an author, scholar, ritualist, poet, midrashist, and dreamworker. She is the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion, a pluralistic seminary, and cofounder of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, a program in earth-based, embodied, feminist Jewish spiritual leadership. Her prior works include Return to the Place: The Magic, Meditation, and Mystery of Sefer Yetzirah (Ben Yehuda Press, 2020); The Hebrew Priestess: Ancient and New Visions of Jewish Women's Spiritual Leadership (with Taya Shere) (Ben Yehuda Press, 2015); The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons (Jewish Publication Society, 2006); Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women (Jewish Publication Society, 2004); and The Book of Earth and Other Mysteries (Lulu, 2016). She and her family live in Manhattan.
UNDERTORAH: AN EARTH-BASED KABBALAH OF DREAMS takes readers on a journey through the root systems of the dreamworld. Drawing on a deep knowledge of ancient Jewish dream practice, world wisdom traditions, and contemporary ecotheology, this hybrid work of mystical scholarship combines personal narrative, multi-voiced oral history, and a somatic alternative to more symbolic methods of dream interpretation. A practical and paradigm-shifting guidebook for individuals and communities, UNDERTORAH offers a transformative approach to contemporary dreamwork, grounded in embodied experience and ancestral wisdom, that connects us to spirit and inspires us to heal our world.
"Jill Hammer is one of the most original thinkers in contemporary spirituality, and this book is her most original yet. A wonderful achievement."--Bruce Feiler, New York Times bestselling author of Walking the Bible and Life Is in the Transitions
"Rabbi Jill Hammer has uncovered the soul of our dreaming, that numinous place of learning, experience, and divine wisdom that takes us far beyond the dry symbology of twentieth-century thinking. UNDERTORAH is the tool kit for the new millennium, brought to us in ways that are articulate, grounded, magical and--crucially--accessible to everyone."--Manda Scott, Sunday Times bestselling author of Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle and cofounder of the Accidental Gods podcast
"UNDERTORAH is a dream book for our time and beyond. Rabbi Hammer reveals how dreams can give us healing access to the world of the sacred, not only in our personal lives but in our collective journey as a species and an ecosystem. Here is a book that will change the lives of all who read it."--Dr. Alicia Ostriker, author of The Volcano and After: Selected and New Poems 2002-2019, Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets (2015-2020), and New York State Poet Laureate (2018-2021)
"Reading dreams with the depth and precision with which poets read poems and geographers read maps, Jill Hammer's UNDERTORAH opens doors between realms and teaches us to follow our dreams through them, guiding us from fear, resentment, inhibition, apathy, and regret to the place within each of us where we can meet the cosmos that lies beyond our limited consciousness.--Dr. Joy Ladin, award-winning poet and author of The Future is Trying to Tell Us Something and Through the Door of Life
Literary Nonfiction
Book Description
A radical approach to dreams and dreamwork rooted in our bodies, communities, and ecosystems.