OCCIDENTAL, Calif. (RNS) — On an unseasonably warm Friday evening in March, 40 people gathered for a Kabbalat Shabbat service in a grove of redwoods and California live oaks, about an hour and a half drive north of San Francisco. A group of musicians led the Jewish congregation in singing Hebrew psalms as an owl made its presence known from somewhere above.

For the silent Amidah prayer, the rabbi invited the congregants — dressed in jeans, hats and hiking shoes — to venture further into the forest for several minutes of private reflection.

“With your eyes, with your heart, please take a moment to greet the trees,” the rabbi said. “Shalom.”

Later, the group sat on picnic tables and shared a vegetarian potluck meal in semidarkness.

The service was part of Makom Shalom, a forest synagogue that launched during the High Holidays last year and has grown to 83 adult members. Rabbi Zelig Golden, a former environmental lawyer and nonprofit director, leads the nondenominational congregation in rural West Sonoma County. It’s a new iteration of an earth-based Judaism movement where Bay Area Jews are finding their spiritual home outside a traditional synagogue and with environmental and feminist ideals at the congregation’s center.

“The Jewish soul comes alive when we’re in the natural world,” Golden, 52, said in an interview a few days before the service. “I get quite a bit of feedback from people who say, ‘Although I loved the synagogue of my upbringing, I’m not ready or able to go into a building to pray anymore.’ They simply want to pray in nature because that’s where they feel the spirit.”

Raised in Spokane, Washington, Golden was ordained a maggid, or Jewish preacher, by the founder of the Jewish Renewal movement, the late Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. In 2007, Golden founded Wilderness Torah, a nonprofit that organized outdoor holiday and educational programs across California, including a “rain dance” on the holiday of Hoshana Rabbah and a Passover celebration in the Mojave desert. He left the organization last year and decided to build Makom Shalom, which means “place of peace” in Hebrew.

“We put a stake in the ground, hammered it in, and we’re seeing who’s showing up,” said Rachel Ruach-Golden, a board member and Golden’s wife. “There are people who want a Judaism that’s recognizable, and there are other people who want to do something that speaks to their ancestral roots, but that also makes them feel alive and connected. We’re in between the tension of those two.”

Makom Shalom held its first services last fall in the expansive backyard of a board member. During the winter months, congregants met in an assembly hall at a public elementary school. They now gather in a redwood grove on the grounds of the same school and will continue to do so as long as the weather permits.

While it is unusual for a Jewish community to regularly convene outdoors, there are a number of Jewish rituals that are traditionally performed in nature. For example, during the autumn harvest festival of Sukkot, observant Jews eat and sometimes sleep in huts, known as sukkahs, recalling the wandering of the Israelites in the wilderness. On the holiday of Lag BaOmer, many light bonfires symbolizing the light of the Torah. The Hasidic practice of hitbodedut (seclusion), popularized by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, is often done in nature.

Rabbi Jill Hammer has been involved for more than 25 years in earth-based Judaism, which draws from sources including Kabbalah, Hasidism and feminism.

“The Jewish mystical tradition has a great respect for the natural world as a location for the divine presence, and will see things like an ocean or orchard as a site of spiritual experience,” said Hammer, the co-founder of Beit Kohenet, a mostly online learning and ritual community.

As human activities increasingly degrade the environment and contribute to climate change, Makom Shalom’s mission is more relevant than ever, she said. “It’s completely awesome,” the Manhattan resident said. “I wish I lived closer and could pray there.”

In February, members of the community gathered at a local landscaping business to celebrate Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish birthday of the trees. They planted three olive trees on the property, then participated in a special seder, or ceremonial meal. During the seder, Ruach-Golden recited a feminine version of the blessing over the wine, substituting “Shekhinah” (divine feminine) for “Adonai” (Lord). At one point, Golden encouraged people to lie face down in the grass and smell the earth, which most did enthusiastically.

“This is the first time I’ve done this in my life,” Udi Merhav, a retired tech executive, said in an interview afterward. “It felt good to smell the fungus.”

Merhav, 62, was born in Jerusalem and has lived in the Bay Area for nearly three decades. He and his family attended Conservative and Reform temples over the years, but he said he felt the most comfortable at Makom Shalom. “It just feels more real to me,” he said. “I like that there are lots of kids. I love the music.”

In addition to Shabbat and holiday celebrations, the congregation hosts monthly gatherings for adults. The men’s group, known as Kiddush Levana (meaning “sanctification of the moon”), meets around the time of the full moon. The men talk about their lives, recite prayers and physically leap toward the moon.

“The subtext of honoring the full moon is about how men honor the feminine,” Golden explained. “In the time of Jeffrey Epstein, I think it’s really critical for men to explore what does it mean to be healthy men and to support each other in conducting themselves well.”

The community has also held two sessions for members to share their thoughts about the Israel-Hamas war. Board member Yael Marmar described the sessions as “heated” but productive. “At the end, we came back together and acknowledged, ‘You’re still human, and I’m still human,’” she said. “If we can do that here, we can do that out in the world.”

Marmar, a real estate agent, attended a Conservative synagogue while growing up in nearby Marin County. “There’s a lot of (synagogue) options around here,” she said. “But there’s also nothing like praying in nature.”

In the coming months, Makom Shalom will launch a b’mitzvah program, the gender-neutral alternative for bar or bat mitzvah. Golden also wants to offer classes taught by volunteers with knowledge of various “ancestral skills,” such as how to build a fire, identify medicinal plants and turn acorns into flour for food.

“These are all skills that are really fun, and they’re also applicable to living a healthy, balanced life,” he said. “So many of us live out of balance. We’re far too much into technology and attenuated from our roots as human beings.”

At the Kabbalat Shabbat service last month, Jake Wachtel was moved by the sight of the colors changing in the sky as dusk fell.

“I haven’t gone to that much Jewish stuff as an adult, partly because I don’t really want to sit in a synagogue,” the 39-year-old filmmaker said. “I’ll go with my folks occasionally, and I just feel kind of antsy. I don’t feel that here.”

Golden said he and his board did not set out to create a new synagogue model. “But I do hope that more people will build spiritual communities that are more connected to nature,” he said. “It’s harder to do that in a place like New York. We’re lucky here in California.”

This story was produced with funding from the Templeton Religion Trust.