• Revised Mincha/Maariv/Havdalah siddur

    Updated: 2012-05-30 14:50:38
    Five years ago I worked with one of my nieces to put together a siddur for her bat mitzvah celebration -- a siddur for mincha, maariv, and havdalah. That siddur featured my niece's poetry, artwork, and midrash along with the...

  • Before There Is Nowhere to Stand

    Updated: 2012-05-29 14:49:04
    I'm delighted to be able to say that my poem "In the Same Key," which appears in 70 faces (Phoenicia Publishing, 2011) will be anthologized in Before There Is Nowhere to Stand (Lost Horse Press, 2012) alongside poems by many...

  • Balm to my heart: Israelis celebrate Shavuot with African kids in Tel Aviv

    Updated: 2012-05-29 14:20:35
    I follow Mya Guarnieri on twitter, so when her post at +972 -- After race riots, Israelis celebrate holiday with African kids -- went live, I read it immediately. (The race riots in question happened last week in Tel Aviv...

  • Sleeping and waking, Torah and revelation

    Updated: 2012-05-28 12:00:00
    Midrash holds that the children of Israel fell asleep on the cusp of the revelation of Torah. This is the reason usually given for the custom of the tikkun leyl Shavuot, the late-night or all-night study session whose name means...

  • Poems of Ruth - for Shavuot

    Updated: 2012-05-27 12:00:00
    Chag sameach! I hope you're having a wonderful Shavuot so far. I promised I would share the poems I taught last night at the tikkun leil Shavuot co-created by my shul and the shul up the road in Bennington. Here...

  • For you were strangers in the land of Egypt

    Updated: 2012-05-24 19:00:16
    Photo of the anti-asylum-seekers rally in Tel Aviv by Tomer Neuberg. My friend rabbinic student Marisa James shared this photo on FB, adding, "At the anti-asylum-seekers protest yesterday in Tel Aviv - the slogan on the shirt reads "death to...

  • Loving the Ger

    Updated: 2012-05-24 16:28:32
    One of my favorite verses in Torah is Deut. 10:19, וַאֲהַבְתֶּם, אֶת-הַגֵּר כִּי-גֵרִים הֱיִיתֶם בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם / v'ahavtem et ha-ger, ki gerim hayyitem b'eretz mitzrayim: "and you shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt."...

  • What Business Has One Born of Woman Among Us?

    Updated: 2012-05-23 14:28:58
    At the time of the giving of the Torah, the Talmud teaches (Shabbat 88b-89a), the heavenly angels appeared before God and asked, regarding Moses: “What business has one born of woman among us?” God replied: he is here to receive the Torah. The angels were outraged. How can God’s greatest gift be given to mere

  • VR Podcast Episode 3: A Shabbat Morning Service

    Updated: 2012-05-21 14:45:03
    VR Podcast Episode 3: Shabbat Morning Service. This is an experimental edition of the Velveteen Rabbi podcast. Instead of featuring me talking about some aspect of Jewish life and spiritual practice, this is a prayer service podcast -- a recording...

  • New toddler house poem for Shavuot

    Updated: 2012-05-21 12:00:00
    Shavuot in the toddler house You don't remember, but you gathered at Sinai with the ganze mishpacha the broadcast came in every language at once our spirits electrified Torah in our mouths like mother's milk sweet as wildflower honey You...

  • Havdalah

    Updated: 2012-05-21 00:39:50
    It's after Drew's bedtime. He's asleep in his crib. We've finished dinner. The sky is turning a glorious deep fading evening blue. I step outside to see if there are stars; I can only spot one, but I hear the...

  • The Rabbi And

    Updated: 2012-05-18 19:30:37
    Ready for a Shabbat picnic. Sometimes it's a little bit challenging to be the rabbi and. The rabbi and mommy. The rabbi and sometimes solo-parent. The rabbi and hostess. And and and. I'm hosting two of my dear ALEPH friends...

  • This week's portion: a Shabbat for the earth

    Updated: 2012-05-18 12:00:00
    Here's the d'var Torah I'll offer tomorrow morning at my shul; if you're joining us for Shabbat morning services (which I'll be co-leading with two dear rabbinic school friends, Rhonda Shapiro-Rieser and David Curiel) you might want to skip this...

  • Dear me

    Updated: 2012-05-17 13:29:01
    If you could talk to your 16-year-old self, what would you say? What advice, warnings, or encouragement would you give your younger self? Dear me. Let's see, you're sixteen. Still grateful to have escaped the dire fate of "sweet sixteen...

  • Awesome community media piece: Mind the Gap in Crown Heights

    Updated: 2012-05-11 08:40:11
    Via this post at Jewschool I found a pretty wonderful piece of community media called Mind the Gap in Crown Heights: (If you can't see the embedded video, above, you can go directly to it at YouTube.) This is a...

  • A poem about Orpah

    Updated: 2012-05-10 12:00:00
    THE ONE WHO TURNED BACK Maybe you envisioned your husband's grave choked with weeds maybe you knew the Israelites would scorn your foreign features the sages say God gave you four sons because you wept as you left her the...

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