Module 7: Transcendent Practice
For use alongside the Rabba Daniella Pressner interview.
Please print this guide BEFORE you watch the video in this module.
Framing the Session
In this conversation, Dr. Lisa Miller and Rabba Daniela Pressner explore the ASI driver of transcendent practice—the ways students come to experience themselves as part of something larger: a moral, spiritual, or relational field that deepens meaning, belonging, and responsibility.
Pause & Reflect before beginning
What helps you feel connected to something larger than yourself (community, nature, values, ancestry, the sacred)?
How do students in your setting encounter ideas that challenge their assumptions or expand their worldview?
What comes up for you when you hear the phrase “transcendent practice”—curiosity, hesitation, inspiration?
Pause & Reflect 2: 0–7:06 (After Daniela explains “bigger than oneself” and Havruta learning and the story of the two second graders)
Summary:
Daniela describes how students learn ancient texts in partnership, where disagreement is expected and even sharpened. Through this relational learning, students push one another intellectually while returning to connection and love. Disagreement becomes a path toward deeper relationship, not division. Two best friends—children of rabbis from different traditions—struggle to honor each other despite their families’ conflicting beliefs. Daniela helps them see that love and respect do not require agreement. Their friendship becomes a model of honoring identity while staying connected.
Pause & Reflect:
How do young people in your context navigate identity-based differences?
What structures or processes help students hold both their own truth and connection with others?
What would it look like for students to “return to love” after hard conversations?
Pause & Reflect 3 — 7:28–11:47 (After Daniela’s personal story of injury and spiritual resilience)
Summary:
Daniela recounts being hit by a car and losing her ability to walk for months. Without movement or dance—her grounding forms of expression—she nearly fell into despair. Yet spiritual practices and blessings she learned in school sustained her, revealing the depth of the spiritual core nourished by educators long before crisis.
Pause & Reflect:
When have you seen a student’s inner life become a source of resilience?
Which classroom experiences might quietly prepare students for future hardship?
How do you help students know they are “more than” their achievements or abilities?
Pause & Reflect 4 — 11:47–14:29 (After discussion of resistance and neuroscience)
Summary:
Daniela notes that some parents and teachers doubt transcendent practice—until they learn the neuroscience. Spiritual development strengthens mental health, resilience, and whole-child integration. She frames the spiritual core as the “foundation of the house”—the structure that holds everything together.
Pause & Reflect:
What forms of skepticism might emerge in your community, and how could you use science, not just intuition, to explain the value of transcendent practice?
What metaphors might help families understand the spiritual core’s importance?\
Pause & Reflect 5 — 14:29–20:31 (After stories of flourishing and student agency)
Summary:
Daniela shares a story of an alum who, feeling unseen after a tragedy on campus, wrote a courageous letter calling the community to action—a capacity she credits to formative spiritual practice at Akiva. She emphasizes giving students agency, voice, and tools to respond with love during collective or personal pain.
Pause & Reflect:
Where do students currently have opportunities to take meaningful action?
How are compassion and activism linked in your school culture?
What practices help students move from despair to purposeful response?
Pause & Reflect 6 — 20:31–23:12. (After reflections on teaching, vulnerability, and the challenges educators face)
Summary:
Daniela highlights the fragility teachers carry in an era shaped by trauma, violence, and uncertainty. She stresses honoring educators’ emotional lives, giving them space to grieve and recover, and trusting them as co-creators of a spiritually grounded school community.
Pause & Reflect:
How does your school support educators’ emotional and spiritual well-being?
What rituals or spaces help teachers feel seen, supported, and valued?
How might teacher wholeness influence student wholeness?
Pause & Reflect 7 — 23:12–28:46 (After discussion of school rituals, commemorations, and the sunflower ceremony)
Summary:
Transcendent practice is woven through Akiva’s celebrations, commemorations, and recurring rituals—from holidays to remembrance to the sunflower ceremony linking kindergarteners and sixth graders. Ritual becomes a sensory, communal way of marking meaning, connecting generations, and creating belonging.
Pause & Reflect:
What existing school moments could be reimagined as rituals of connection or meaning?
What annual traditions already shape your school’s identity?
What new ritual could help students feel part of something bigger across their years in school?
Final Pause & Reflect — (Closing encouragement to educators)
Summary:
Daniela reminds educators that their work is profoundly moral and spiritually significant. Even on hard days, they are shaping lives in ways that may not be visible for decades. She affirms that transcendent practice is joyful, life-giving, and central to the sacred work of teaching.
Pause & Reflect:
What feels most sacred or meaningful to you in your role as an educator?
How might transcendent practice bring more joy or grounding into your daily teaching?
What is one small step you feel ready to take toward cultivating transcendent practice in your school?