• Days of Awe 5773: a baker's dozen of moments to remember

    Updated: 2012-09-28 12:00:00
    Sitting down with my family -- parents, in-laws, husband, sister, nephew, son -- for an early Erev Rosh Hashanah dinner. Fabulous food, good conversation, pumpkin panna cotta with hazelnut brittle, and most of all, the joy of seeing my far-flung...

  • A poem after the High Holidays

    Updated: 2012-09-27 18:15:01
    AFTER THE HOLIDAYS I empty the mother jar measure flour and water drape a dishtowel tallit unearth one wilted celery and a faded fennel bulb, today's wholeness offering soon diced onion hisses sibilant in the skillet glistening in chicken fat...

  • A Sukkot prayer for the Bedouin at Rabbis for Human Rights

    Updated: 2012-09-27 12:00:00
    Hope all of y'all had a wonderful Yom Kippur! Earlier this summer the folks at Rabbis for Human Rights North America asked if I would write a Sukkot prayer which touches on the situation of the Israeli Bedouin. I was...

  • A sermon for Yom Kippur Morning: In The Belly of the Whale

    Updated: 2012-09-26 17:00:00
    This is the sermon I offered this morning at my synagogue. Once there was a man named Jonah, "Dove," son of Amittai, "Truth." And God spoke to him and said, Go to the great city of Nineveh and tell them...

  • Kol Nidre Sermon: What Are We Here For?

    Updated: 2012-09-26 12:53:10
    Once there was a great rabbi named Yekhiel. Reb Yekhiel could discern the deepest truths in a person's soul just by looking at them. He would gaze at your forehead for a moment, and then tell you the history of...

  • The most amazing lead-up to Yom Kippur

    Updated: 2012-09-25 18:50:37
    On Monday morning the phone rang. The caller ID showed an unfamiliar number, but something told me I should pick it up. It was a dear friend, calling from a borrowed number. Her parent had just died. After I offered...

  • One last post before Yom Kippur

    Updated: 2012-09-25 12:00:00
    Yom Kippur is fast approaching. Tonight my community will gather around 5:40 to hear a pianist and violinist playing Kol Nidre and other appropriate melodies; on the dot of 6, we'll move into our recitations of Kol Nidre and into...

  • Day of Atonement

    Updated: 2012-09-24 17:07:27
    Filed under: Yom Kippur Tagged: atonement, cartoon, holiday, jewish, Yom Kippur

  • A havdalah ritual for the September equinox

    Updated: 2012-09-23 12:00:00
    Equinox and solstice photo courtesy of NASA. The September equinox was yesterday. Back at the end of June, I was blessed to celebrate Rosh Chodesh (new moon) with the women of my congregation, and this past June, the start of...

  • Notes from Shabbat Shuvah at Elat Chayyim, fall 2003 / 5764

    Updated: 2012-09-21 21:17:37
    From my journal, October 2003 / Tishrei 5764: Elat Chayyim is every bit as fantastic as I remembered. When I arrived on Friday, I had this feeling of, "It's real! It's really here! I didn't make it up!" I walked...

  • A post-Rosh Hashanah poem

    Updated: 2012-09-21 14:22:10
    AFTER ROSH HASHANAH I empty the mother jar measure flour and water cover the bowl with a dishtowel tallit browse the fridge for one wilted celery and a faded fennel bulb, today's wholeness offering soon uneven dice hiss their comforting...

  • A teaching from the Sfat Emet for Rosh Hashanah

    Updated: 2012-09-18 01:00:00
    This is my second-evening-of-Rosh-Hashanah offering, in lieu of a second-night sermon. A teaching from the Hasidic rabbi known as the Sfat Emet. (Translation mine.) "Inscribe us for life." [From the High Holiday Amidah: "Remember us for life, O King Who...

  • Being Change (A Sermon for Rosh Hashanah)

    Updated: 2012-09-17 17:00:00
    "Think of Rosh Hashanah as the stem cells of the year." So says my teacher Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, known to his friends and students as Reb Zalman. Stem cells can become anything as they mature and grow; they contain infinite...

  • A prayer for Tashlich

    Updated: 2012-09-12 12:00:00
    On the first day of Rosh Hashanah, after morning services, it's customary to go to a body of water and perform the ritual of tashlich, in which we throw breadcrumbs or pieces of bread into the water as a symbolic...

  • Five more mother poems published

    Updated: 2012-09-11 12:00:00
    Deep thanks to the editors of literary journals Bolts of Silk ("beautiful poems with something to say") and Toasted Cheese for publishing my work this week. The editor at Bolts of Silk published "Mother Psalm 8;" the editors at Toasted...

  • 10 questions

    Updated: 2012-09-10 23:43:22
    This will be the fourth year that I participate in 10Q, a chance to reflect as the new year begins. 10Q takes place during the Ten Days of Teshuvah between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Every day during that period...

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