Rachmana
Founder of aramaicjesus.org — teacher, chanter, and interpreter of the Aramaic Yeshua
About Rachmana
Rachmana (Rahmaneh) is the founder and guiding voice of aramaicjesus.org. Her journey to the Aramaic Jesus began in childhood — raised in the church, she loved the stained glass windows, organ music, and teachings about love, justice, forgiveness, and peace. Yet at twelve, she left the church in tears, unable to say yes to God as Trinity.
Her mother was Jewish, though not raised Jewishly. Through an intellectually stimulating but spiritually searching upbringing, Rachmana set off on her own path — guided, as she describes it, by a voice she heard while at college in New York.
What followed was a lifetime of spiritual exploration: the counterculture of the late 1960s, yogic community life, Montessori teaching, massage therapy, and eventually the Dances of Universal Peace — through which she became enamored of the Aramaic Yeshua. Studying, singing, and dancing the words of Jesus in Aramaic inspired her to learn about his (and her own) Judaism, leading her into Jewish Renewal through the lineage of Reb Zalman Schacter-Shalomi.
With her partner Tomas Meyers, Rachmana co-directed a spiritual center and together they dedicated decades to making the Aramaic teachings of Jesus accessible through music, poetry, and contemplative practice. She also maintains connections with Sufi groups, singing and moving with words in Arabic that share the same Semitic roots as Hebrew and Aramaic.
“The seamlessness of the Semitic stream of revelation becomes my experience daily through my various practices; yet I witness how lacking this understanding is in the world. Thus I am inspired to do what I can to share what I have learned, in hopes that it will nourish what so many intuitively know — that it is all interconnected and essentially saying the same thing: love, peace, justice, forgiveness, joy, gratitude.”
Works by Rachmana
Writings & Essays
- Welcome to aramaicjesus.org — The site’s founding statement and invitation
- On Non-Duality — An essay exploring interfaith unity and the seamlessness of spiritual traditions
- Why This Site — A personal statement on the purpose and mission of aramaicjesus.org
- Bibliography — A curated collection of 35+ books on Aramaic Jesus, interfaith studies, and mysticism
Audio
- Seedlings and Gleanings — Co-created with Tomas and a community of voices
- Becoming Peace — Original songs by Rachmana, Tomas, and Shauna Simon
- Calling the Hearer — Aramaic chants and prayers
Collaborative Works
- Glossary of Key Aramaic Words — Interpretive renderings of Aramaic terms used by Yeshua, created alongside Tomas’s poetic expansions
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Rachmana?
Rachmana (Rahmaneh) is the founder and guiding voice of aramaicjesus.org. A lifelong spiritual seeker, she discovered the Aramaic Jesus through the Dances of Universal Peace and went on to study, sing, and dance the words of Jesus in Aramaic. She also studied Jewish Renewal through the lineage of Reb Zalman Schacter-Shalomi and maintains connections with Sufi groups, reflecting the interfaith spirit of the site.
What is “Calling the Hearer”?
“Calling the Hearer” is an album of twenty-one tracks of Aramaic chants and prayers by Rachmana, available on the site’s Audio page. It represents a deeper exploration of the Aramaic wisdom tradition, building on the foundations laid in the earlier albums “Seedlings and Gleanings” and “Becoming Peace.”
What does the name “Rachmana” mean?
“Rachmana” (or “Rahmaneh”) comes from the Semitic root R-H-M, which carries meanings of compassion, mercy, and womb — the same root found in the Arabic “Rahman” (the Compassionate, one of the names of God in Islam) and the Hebrew “rachamim” (compassion). The name reflects both her spiritual path and the site’s emphasis on the shared roots of the Abrahamic languages.
b’shlama · b’shalom · salam
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