The Power of Two:
Friendship & the Power of Mussar

Honoring Nancy Axelrod and Adie Goldberg

Sunday, May 17 | 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT

The Center for Contemporary Mussar’s Annual Fundraiser

Nancy and Adie are leaders within the CCM community whose long-standing work together has yielded – among other things – our amazing new Mussar Workbook. This year’s theme at CCM has been friendship, and particularly that special form of spiritual friendship we call chavruta study – where two people study sacred text together and develop their relationship. To conclude our year of celebrating friendships and chavruta study, please join us for this culminating event honoring Adie and Nancy and their accomplishment as co-authors of our new Workbook. Volume One was published in 2025 and Volume Two forthcoming this Fall!

This event will feature two musical performances, guest speakers, and a glimpse into the incredible chavruta between Adie and Nancy.

Sustain our community!

In such difficult times, this Mussar community is more vital than ever. You can play a crucial role in the sustainability of our organization, and ensure a lasting impact. Please consider giving at an elevated level:

Side-by-side images of two women with the words 'Nancy' and 'Adie' on each side.

Nancy Axelrod has been a Mussar student in Philadelphia since 2009, and a teacher since 2013, both in CCM’s South Jersey va’ad and Madrich Training Program. Her career as a non-profit director and activist focused on women’s rights, social justice and racial reconciliation, which she has brought to her Mussar practice and teaching. Nancy is a founding board member of CCM and was its first Executive Director.

Adie Goldberg learned about Mussar when she incorporated it into the school curriculum as a Jewish educator in Spokane, WA. It wasn’t until she moved to Ashland, OR and met Rabbi Boettiger in 2008 that she immersed herself in CCM’s program as a student, madricha and board member. As a palliative care social worker, Adie has extended CCM’s teachings into her secular life.

Nancy and Adie met almost a decade ago – Nancy as a CCM teacher trainer and Adie as a trainee. During the training’s Philadelphia retreat, Adie stayed at Nancy’s home and a friendship started to bloom.

Although their bi-coastal approaches to teaching and learning were as different as they are from each other, Nancy and Adie discovered how much they needed exactly what the other brought. Their time together – countless hours on Zoom, but only in person four times over ten years – opened doors that neither could have unlocked alone.They came together to study text and ended up studying their lives.