Rabbi Yali

Rabbi Yali The "I Am" Project workshops teach emotional wellness practices in the classroom using simple, practical, and impactful mindfulness and embodiment tools.

Award-winning educator, trauma-informed emotions specialist, and writer dedicated to creating spaces in which children, teens, and families feel seen, supported, and empowered. We foster the development of emotional literacy and emotional wellness practices across classrooms with students, teachers, parents, and school leadership. Students guide the teaching in accordance with what they need, and learn techniques to help them manage stress and fully experience their emotions in healthy ways. They practice being supportive and respectful through tools that teach them to slow down, notice, and work with their own experience. They learn to experience how their own mind-body-heart-spirit system works, and therefore learn how to work more productively with themselves.

We don’t know what the storm will bring, but we know that our decorations at Hebrew Institute of Riverdale are made with...
09/25/2026

We don’t know what the storm will bring, but we know that our decorations at Hebrew Institute of Riverdale are made with love, and community in mind. Chag Sameach 🍋 🌴

Peak marathon weeks landed right on Sukkot. Of course they did.Tishrei is the fullest month of my year, with programming...
09/24/2026

Peak marathon weeks landed right on Sukkot. Of course they did.

Tishrei is the fullest month of my year, with programming at The Bayit Hebrew Institute of Riverdale all month and a sukkah that went up in the pouring rain this week with my smallest helpers on inspection duty.

I started this morning’s 17 miles sure I had nothing left. Around mile 9, a verse from Tehillim caught up with me: *mechayil el chayil*, they go from strength to strength.

Strength gets built on purpose. Every program that fills our building starts with weeks of intentional work long before the doors open. Every long run works the same way, one deliberate mile at a time.

The Talmud uses this same verse to teach that Torah scholars get no rest in this world or the next. As a rabbi in Tishrei, I feel extremely seen. 😅

Wishing you strength for whatever road you’re on this season. Chag sameach 🍋

Stretch your arms all the, from fingertip to fingertip.Your wingspan is roughly your height, you are as wide as you are ...
09/23/2026

Stretch your arms all the, from fingertip to fingertip.
Your wingspan is roughly your height, you are as wide as you are tall.

Most days we fold ourselves in. We pull our arms and cross our legs in meetings, and hug our elbows in tight as to not take up too much space on the train. We spend so much time just trying to take up a little less space.

We fold our spirits in the same way. We hold the enormity of who we are close to the chest, keeping what’s beautiful about us tucked out of sight until some moment feels safe enough to open.

When Go’d shows Avraham the land, Go’d tell him to walk north, south, east, and west, then to walk it — it it’s length and it’s breadth. (Bereish*t/Genesis 13: 14-17). That invitation stretches out in every direction.

Today find one moment to stand up. Step outside if you can. Stretch from fingertip to fingertip and notice what you can reach. Then turn slowly in a full circle. Everything inside that circle is yours.

Where in your day could you take up the space of your full wingspan?

I’ve been hearing a familiar dreading conversations about Yom Kippur: the feeling that we haven’t done enough, that we a...
09/18/2026

I’ve been hearing a familiar dreading conversations about Yom Kippur: the feeling that we haven’t done enough, that we aren’t enough.
I know that feeling – for years I was ashamed to arrive at the holiday, still struggling, still not healed.
I wrote about the mercy woven through our prayers, and what it might mean to let it reach us.
The full piece, The Mercy is For You, Too, is in the Substack link in my bio.
G’mar Chatmah Tova. 🕊️

In the middle of a bent over row, the trainer teaching the class said, “control the positive, and control the negative.”...
09/16/2026

In the middle of a bent over row, the trainer teaching the class said, “control the positive, and control the negative.” It was just a cue about the lift, but this morning it reminded me of something that I said yesterday to a parent about their kid.

Then something clicked: the cues he gives in the gym and the things that I find myself saying in parenting conversations aren’t so far apart.

“Don’t let this beat you.”
“Keep breathing”
“Focus on what you’re working on.”
“Squeeze it, don’t throw it.

So here I’m sharing five reps, five parenting conversations, and five good lines of Jewish wisdom underneath.

Swipe through to see where they meet: in our bodies, in our parenting, and the way that we practice being human.

What’s something that showed up in one part of your life that unexpectedly served you and helped you in another?

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There’s something I love about the hours before a chag at HIR.We open our doors to our community’s kids so parents can h...
09/11/2026

There’s something I love about the hours before a chag at HIR.

We open our doors to our community’s kids so parents can have a few hours to work, cook, prepare, breathe, or simply get themselves to the finish line. And while they’re with us, we try to make every moment meaningful.

This morning, a mom asked me at drop-off, “Should I go home and cook, or get a manicure?”

“Get the manicure,” I told her.

“Well, if I have a rabbi’s permission…” 💅

At pickup, she told me that while getting her nails done, she figured out what she could delegate, made a plan, and ended up getting so much done afterward. Plus, a great manicure.

Meanwhile, her kids spent the morning making art, playing games, eating together, and being cared for by our incredible teen leaders.

And today was September 11.

Our teens are too young to remember 9/11 themselves, but the adults in the room do. Between snacks and activities, we shared memories of how our world changed when many of us were teenagers ourselves. Our teens listened, and reflected on how meaningful it felt to spend today caring for younger children and filling a Jewish space with joy.

That, too, feels like remembering.

Building community. Caring for one another. Giving parents room to breathe. Teaching teenagers what it means to lead. Filling our Jewish spaces with children and laughter and life.

This is what we mean when we say we want to make every moment meaningful.

May the memories of all those we lost on September 11, 2001 be a blessing. And may the communities we continue to build be worthy of their memory. Hebrew Institute of Riverdale

The holiest moments of this season don’t always happen in the sanctuary.They happen on a playground bench. In a hospital...
09/10/2026

The holiest moments of this season don’t always happen in the sanctuary.

They happen on a playground bench. In a hospital hallway. In the two minutes you get alone in a parked car.

This pocket companion was written for the parent and the caregiver carrying prayer through everything else, the cry, the medication schedule, the phone call to a sibling who isn’t there. Ten reflections built around the actual days of the season, Rosh Hashanah, the shofar, Kol Nidrei, Ne’ilah, each one paired with a question and a blessing.

If you want the full companion, comment “companion” below or send me a DM and I’ll get it to you.

Yeshivat Maharat

Some years, the Days of Awe find us in the sanctuary. Other years, they find us in a hospital hallway, beside a child wh...
09/10/2026

Some years, the Days of Awe find us in the sanctuary. Other years, they find us in a hospital hallway, beside a child who cannot settle, caring for a parent whose needs have filled the day, or sitting alone in the car for the only quiet two minutes we have.

I wrote the first pages of this companion at my son’s hospital bedside one Yom Kippur. It has grown each year from the belief that caregiving belongs within our sacred language, and that the love we carry through an ordinary, difficult day is holy work.

A Companion for the Days of Awe offers reflections, prayers, and gentle questions for parents and caregivers entering the new year with full hands and tired hearts.

May these words help you recognize the holiness already present in your tending, your returning, and your willingness to keep showing up.

The Pocket and Full Editions are available - just DM me or comment “companion”.

Save this carousel for the days you need it, and share it with someone who is carrying a lot right now.

JewishSpirituality HighHolidays ParentingWithPresence

Where does your child’s body put its feelings? A question that comes up often for me, as a mom and in my counseling work...
09/02/2026

Where does your child’s body put its feelings? A question that comes up often for me, as a mom and in my counseling work.

Where this story starts: This morning I walked into a boxing gym for the first time since 2013.

My own discovery of movement as a healing tool started with boxing.

Kids feel big emotions in their bodies before they have words for them. Where does the anger go? The fear? The grief?

It doesn’t have to be boxing. A yoga class, a run across the yard, clay in their hands, anything that lets the body move.

Follow what their body is already doing. Pushing? Hand them a pillow. Pacing? Walk beside them.

Restless? Put on music. Disappearing? Sit close and breathe with them.

Gevurah is the Jewish word for strength held within boundaries. The power to hold.

Set. Act. Reset. However a child moves a big feeling, it tends to follow this shape.

New essay is up on Running Commentary, boxing, breath, and the very old idea of holding what’s yours to hold. Link in bio.

A little map of what lives here: parenting, Jewish life, identity, belonging, youth work, leadership, family stories, an...
08/28/2026

A little map of what lives here: parenting, Jewish life, identity, belonging, youth work, leadership, family stories, and the threads that connect them all.

In the link in my bio, you’ll find my Substack, Running Commentary, where I write personal essays about parenting, spirituality, emotional wellness, and the sacredness hidden in ordinary life. You’ll also find The Concordia Papers, where I’m documenting my unfolding research into my family’s history in Argentina and the lives and legacies of the people who came before me.

If you’re new here, welcome. I’m glad you found your way in.

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New York, NY

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+19176205989

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