What Happened for Me: My Ongoing Journey into Feminine Wisdom

My name is Allison Goldman Blustin, and I came to this work organically — through lived experience, heartbreak and healing, sacred learning, and a deep yearning to connect body and spirit through Jewish wisdom.

I grew up in Toronto, Canada, in a progressive, culturally Jewish home. My grandparents had survived the Holocaust, and the shadow of that trauma shaped everything. My father’s generation sought safety in material success, and I internalized early on that achievement was the path to security — and to making meaning within my family’s intergenerational story of survival.

So I worked hard in school. I earned top marks, won scholarships, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Summa Cum Laude, majoring in Political Science with honors and Mandarin. I took my first job in Beijing at the Canada China Business Council and later began a PhD in political economy, researching the development of Chinese financial institutions. By my mid-twenties, I had been awarded upwards of $200,000 in research funding and was on a fast-track toward academic prestige.

But something in me was aching.

Each award, each credential, each step forward on paper felt like a step away from myself. I was becoming someone who looked great on paper — but a stranger to my own soul. Over time, that disconnect became more painful.

In 2016, I made one of the most difficult and defining choices of my life. I walked away. I turned down the research grants, left the PhD program, and moved to Los Angeles to begin again — not with a clear plan, but with a strong internal knowing that it was time to live differently.

I lived by the ocean and began practicing yoga every day. For the first time, I practiced listening to the quiet wisdom of my own body. I met inspiring teachers and began connecting with Jewish spirituality in a deeply personal way — not through obligation or dogma, but through awe, rhythm, and ritual.

At a community event, I met an elderly Persian man with my father’s eyes, who taught me how to read Torah as a spiritual practice. Eventually, I became a member of IKAR, a traditional Jewish spiritual community where I learned and prayed for years. There, Rabbi Sharon Brous gave me a vision of community rooted in relationship, justice, and love, as well as so many opportunities to practice showing up. Rabbi David Kasher helped strengthen my knowledge of Jewish sources and intertextual learning.

In 2019, I attended Passover in the Desert with Wilderness Torah, and I began to understand how these ancient traditions invite us to connect with the natural world as a way of connecting to ourselves. There, surrounded by a small gathering of women, I experienced the ancient Jewish mikveh ritual as a deeply personal, healing practice for the first time. That moment, and a blessing I received from a fellow traveler at the time, transformed something within me.

Finally, in 2022, my external reality shifted radically to reflect the transformation inside.

First, I was offered the role of Interim Director of the Mikveh at the American Jewish University. Every day, I held space for people coming to immerse — for grief, celebration, healing, and transition. It was one of the holiest roles I’ve ever held.

As part of that role, I began a serious and personal exploration of the laws of family holiness — taharat hamishpacha. I didn’t step into the tradition easily. I had questions, resistance, and a lot of wrestling to do. But as I studied, reflected, and practiced, something shifted. I found a framework that honored both sacredness and sensuality. What once felt inaccessible began to feel like a powerful, embodied ritual cycle — one that could support joy, presence, and deep spiritual intimacy.

It was during this powerful time in my life that I met my husband, Rabbi Sam Blustin, who has become my learning partner, my co-dreamer, and my greatest spiritual mirror. Together, we began to study ancient texts, explore the intersections of love and Torah, and try to live what we teach. This is how the project of Kedusha Connections originally began — as Sam and I continued to deepen our relationship and explore how we wanted to incorporate Jewish traditions into our lives, we began to try on some of the more traditional practices of Judaism within the home. In doing so, we discovered a well of meaning and connection that surprised both of us.

Through it all, I’ve continued to train — earning certifications in the Gottman Method of relationship coaching, Prepare/Enrich premarital counseling, and spiritual counseling through Beit T’Shuvah. I’m currently pursuing certification as a sexuality educator through the Institute of Spiritual Education and Enlightment (ISEE). Still, my most important credentials come from lived experience: in my own body, in my marriage, and in the sacred circles I’ve held with other women seeking truth and connection.

I created Kedusha Connections to share this work — to reclaim the feminine lineage of Jewish wisdom that has been mostly passed down mother to daughter, breath to breath. It’s not always taught in rabbinical schools, but it lives in our bones.

Today, I am a modern Rebbetzin. Not simply because I’m married to a Rabbi — but because of my role as a spiritual guide, ritual facilitator, and teacher in my own right. I hope to carry forward a tradition of embodied holiness that honors intimacy, dignity, and the sacredness of the everyday.

This work isn’t about fixing people. It’s about holding space for healing, connection, and joy. I don’t have all the answers. But I believe you do — and I’d be honored to walk beside you as you uncover them.

This is heart work. And holy work. And I’m so grateful to be doing it.