Core Faculty

core faculty kabbalah experience

Dr. David Sanders

Dr. David Sanders, Founder and Spiritual Director of Kabbalah Experience, combines over thirty years of experience as both a psychologist and Kabbalist helping guide people to deeper awareness and fulfillment in their lives. His transformation from religious studies to mysticism intrigued him to broaden the study of Kabbalah to practical spiritual growth. Transformative Kabbalah combines traditional mysticism, contemporary psychology and quantum physics.

It is David’s joy to help others challenge their views of themselves and the world. Through study and practice, students regularly change their perceptions and choose to alter or modify their behavior – which in turn brings positive change to their relationships, community, and finding greater and more fulfilling expression of their life purpose. He is the author of 2 books on mysticism and language, and is currently writing a book on MASKS, the subject of one of KE’s most popular courses.

David maintains an active therapy practice, specializing in working with couples and families. He sees psychological and spiritual growth as a continuum of learning and becoming more aware of the self and others. His creation of Kabbalah Experience is a way to enter into people’s lives from a different premise – spiritual learning and guidance that does not have a starting point of “my problem.” Basing the methodology of study at KE on adult centered learning, everyone is linked in the awareness work together, the teacher becomes the student and the student becomes the teacher. 

David considers it his fortune to live with and learn from his wife Rita every day. With two sets of twins and an eldest son, life is rich for the whole family.

Melanie

Melanie Gruenwald

Melanie Gruenwald, Executive Director of Kabbalah Experience, brings over 25 years of non-profit leadership and community-organizing to her position. Engaged with senior citizens, families, college students, and teens, Melanie has extensive professional experience with communal leadership and informal Jewish education.

Melanie is energized by building relationships, understanding people’s needs and finding ways to connect them to one another. She loves the balance of organizational leadership and teaching which she engages on a daily basis at Kabbalah Experience.

She earned her B.S. in Psychology from Binghamton University (S.U.N.Y), and Masters in Social Work and Certificate in Jewish Communal Service from the Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University. Melanie has pursued additional Judaic and spiritual studies at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, the Conservative Yeshiva, and most recently, Kabbalah Experience.

Melanie is married to Rabbi Salomon Gruenwald, Senior Rabbi at the Hebrew Educational Alliance in Denver, and is mom to three children, Koby (z”l), Hannah, and Micah.

Jamie

Rabbi Benjamin “Jamie” Arnold

Rabbi Benjamin (“Jamie”) Arnold has been a student of mysticism, Buddhism, meditation and Kabbalah and the teachings of Mussar for more than 25 years. He has served as a congregational rabbi and teacher since 1997, and came to Congregation Beth Evergreen in Colorado as their first full-time rabbi in 2005. Originally from Western New York, he also served as Rabbi at Temple Sinai in Amherst, New York.

Rabbi Jamie’s teaching draws on his experience as a spiritual practitioner, intensive learning with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, talent as a musician and writer, and a deep-rooted commitment to fostering spiritual connections between us all. He is active in building bridges between communities as a member of the Evergreen Interfaith Group and past President of The Interfaith Alliance of Colorado. Rabbi Jamie is a graduate of Kenyon College (1992) and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (1999), a husband, a parent of three young adult children, and an avid skier and mountain biker. He brings a caring heart, consummate knowledge, spirituality and passion to every class he teaches at Kabbalah Experience.