• Now and later: beginning to approach the Days of Awe

    Updated: 2012-07-30 21:15:54
    I've had three long Skype dates recently with my friend and colleague David Curiel. David is an ALEPHnik who will be leading services alongside me during the Days of Awe. So far we've worked our way through planning services for...

  • A poem in Adanna, issue 2

    Updated: 2012-07-28 12:19:54
    I'm delighted to be able to announce that one of my mother poems -- "Weaning" -- has been published in issue 2 of Adanna, "A Journal for Women, about Women." Here's how editor Christine Redman-Waldeyer explains the name: Adanna, a...

  • New Torah poem - inspired by the book of Ezra

    Updated: 2012-07-27 12:00:00
    CONSTRUCTION It's a hot day in Jerusalem. Workmen wipe sweat, straining to lift limestone into place. A brass band: priests in white linen playing polished trumpets, Levites smashing cymbals in praise. Old men weep who remember when the rubble was...

  • An unusual wedding

    Updated: 2012-07-26 21:29:41
    The state park arises out of nowhere. The countryside around it is quite built-up, highways and office parks and car dealerships, but then the road enters a new town, and the trees grow thicker, and suddenly there's an entryway to...

  • On bathrooms, blessings, and a learning experience

    Updated: 2012-07-25 16:36:09
    About a year ago, I printed out the following on a flyer and posted it inside the stalls of the bathrooms at my shul: Asher Yatzar / Blessing for the Body בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר יָצַר אֶת...

  • As Tisha b'Av approaches

    Updated: 2012-07-24 12:00:00
    We begin our descent toward the rubble. Our hearts crack open and sorrow comes flooding in. Help us to believe that tears can transform, that redemption is possible. The walls will come down: open our eyes, give us strength not...

  • A prayer from Reb Zalman for Tisha b'Av

    Updated: 2012-07-23 12:00:00
    Here's a prayer for Tisha b'Av, written by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, a.k.a. Reb Zalman. This comes from the Reb Zalman Legacy Project blog; in this post he explains the origin of this prayer. It's meant to be recited on Tisha...

  • Rosh Chodesh Av; Ramadan Mubarak

    Updated: 2012-07-20 15:24:32
    A sliver of new moon. This morning I woke to an email from Rabbi Arthur Waskow which began: Tonight (July 19, 2012), as the New Moon glimmers, the Jewish and Muslim communities both enter a solemn month, known to one...

  • Writing about the Three Weeks for On Being

    Updated: 2012-07-19 17:46:38
    My thanks are due to the folks at On Being who asked to reprint one of my recent VR blog posts. I'm a longtime fan of On Being with Krista Tippett -- I posted about one of its episodes a...

  • This week's portion: redeeming the instructions to displace and destroy

    Updated: 2012-07-18 16:34:00
    Here's the d'var Torah I offered yesterday morning at my shul, on last week's Torah portion, Matot-Masei. God spoke to Moshe on the plains of Moab near the Jordan, and said: speak to the children of Israel and tell them:...

  • New film about the Baal Shem Tov

    Updated: 2012-07-18 12:00:00
    "The Baal Shem Tov was so different than other teachers of his day. They were studying the texts that were in books. And they were so smart about those texts, they were able to find the very fine finesses between...

  • New poem: Lunaria Annua

    Updated: 2012-07-13 12:00:00
    LUNARIA ANNUA Honesty blooms once a year. It comes from the Balkans. Left to its own devices it turns up in unexpected places. Its sillicles may become coins, monocles, chips of the moon. Its windchime orchestra entices bees to dance....

  • Rachel Tzvia Back's A Messenger Comes

    Updated: 2012-07-12 14:18:48
    In the beginning it was sudden -- the world that wasn't yet all at once emerging out of formless void -- space of the infinite broken into pieces -- God retreating to make way for perfect human imperfection... This is...

  • New stories, new leadership, new hope

    Updated: 2012-07-10 13:19:41
    WASHINGTON -- When Waleed Issa walked into the Americans for Peace Now (APN) Washington, DC office on the first day of his summer internship in June, the 25-year-old Palestinian from the Dheisheh refugee camp south of Bethlehem was startled by...

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