Here is the xhtml for the filterbox:

<h:form id="orgSearch" styleClass="edit">
    
        <rich:simpleTogglePanel label="Click Here search for shuls" switchType="client" opened="true">
      
            <s:decorate template="/layout/display.xhtml">
                <ui:define name="label">Shul Name</ui:define>
                <h:inputText id="name" value="#{shulList.org.name}" />
            </s:decorate>

            <s:decorate template="/layout/display.xhtml">
                <ui:define name="label">City</ui:define>
                <h:inputText id="city" value="#{shulList.org.address.city}"/>
            </s:decorate>
            <s:decorate template="/layout/display.xhtml">
                <ui:define name="label">State</ui:define>
                <h:inputText id="state" value="#{shulList.org.address.state}"/>
            </s:decorate>
          <div class="actionButtons" style="clear: left;">
            <h:commandButton id="search" value="Search" action="/shul/list.xhtml"/>
        </div>
        </rich:simpleTogglePanel>
    <br/><br/>    
    </h:form>

Here is the associated list.page.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<page xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/pages"
      xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
      xsi:schemaLocation="http://jboss.com/products/seam/pages http://jboss.com/products/seam/pages-2.0.xsd">
   <begin-conversation join="true"/>  
   <param name="firstResult" value="#{shulList.firstResult}"/>
   <param name="order" value="#{shulList.order}"/>
   <param name="from"/>
   <param name="name" value="#{shulList.org.name}" required="false"/>
   <param name="city" value="#{shulList.org.address.city}"/>
   <param name="state" value="#{shulList.org.address.state}"/>

</page>

Here is the link for each org's details page:

<s:link view="/#{empty from ? 'shul/show' : from}.xhtml" 
                   value="Select" 
                   id="org" propagation="nest">
      <f:param name="nickname" value="#{org.nickname}"/>
</s:link>

Here is the back botton on the orgdetails.page:

<s:link view="/shul/list.xhtml" value="Back To List" propagation="end"/>

As can be seen, I tried using nested conversations for my last go at this, but was unsuccessful.  Using the browser's back button work fine, but my link does not.  Is there a proper seam way for implementing the back button, or should i just use some javascript?

I tried the first option but it didn't work.  What I think is going on is that: since the org in the shulList EntityQuery is filled in by the page parameters, nulls are entered into all the fields when i go back without the page parameters filled out.  Therefore, it doesn't matter what scope the entityQuery is. 

I was trying to avoid the second option as i would need to carry a lot of variables around in the url.

I ended up just making the back button into a 'javascript:history.back();' call.

As far as your question, you need to override the getEjbql function. Here is what I did:

@Override
public String getEjbql() {
     return "select org from Org org inner join fetch org.address where org.enabled = true";

you can do whatever joins you want there and even static restrictions. For hql/ejbql help, you should look at ejb websites as they often have good examples.