Pesach 2018
Happy Passover precious ones! I bless us all with freedom of every flavor. Free-2b-dum... as a doorknob - that opens wide. Free to fall flat... as matzah. Free to be broken... as an Afi…
READ THE ESSAY ↗INSPIRATION
Writing & reflections
Torah, Jewish life, spiritual growth, Israel, and the times we live in.
64 essays
Galus
I am agitated For just the slightest slice of expression. I want to pen the lines of my people In poetry Instead of pining in lines in the grocery Instead of all this thick mundane and …
READ THE ESSAY ↗Cornered
I am learning to be a corner - the place where two walls MEet - No ME beyond the MErging of these two tangible textured things I am intangible, no texture No text - only breath Like the…
READ THE ESSAY ↗L'Chaim to 2017
Dear departing friend on your final spin Here’s to 12 months of grit, struggle & accomplishment The way we were worn out Reborn and burned out The way the world smoked And the globe rol…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Eulogy for Paint - After the Terror by Arson Fires of 2016
Who by fire? - A Brush With Flames Is it permissible to weep for things? Because I want to sit shiva for this house that just went up in flames. Mourning a most tender box of paint. Mou…
READ THE ESSAY ↗A Eulogy for Leonard Cohen
On November 9th, our world was astounded by the sharp turn of events known as the 2016 American elections. Whoever we voted for…we all ended up shocked. Into that messy mix of emotions …
READ THE ESSAY ↗In Honor of the Murdered....and their Orphans
Note: The image above was taken at a Shachrit minyan (morning prayer) that took place a day later and in the same place where a terror attack took place that killed two men and injured …
READ THE ESSAY ↗I'm Sorry, Syria
It came from Syria, like an unwanted refugee. A dust storm that laid itself across the land of Israel – and the entire Middle East. 5 days of hot snow. With vision-choking, car-coating,…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Here’s What’s Wrong With Women Becoming Orthodox Rabbis
Shehechiyanu. We have witnessed the day when it is no longer an Orthodox sacrilege to see a woman ordained as a communal leader – whether she be called Rabbi or Rabba or Maharat. The lo…
READ THE ESSAY ↗I Don’t Want To Go Back To Israel
It’s August. Time of my annual reckoning. My yearly heart-break of a return to America, to the grandparents, the cousins, the aunties, the floor to floor carpeting, the ritual visits to…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Mourning My Way In
It’s Tisha B’Av, our holiday of communal mourning. There’s a saying in the world of professional Jewish educators, “When it comes to Jewish identity, there’s no business like Shoah busi…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Nu, What Are You Going To Pray For?!
There’s something I’ve been wanting. Badly. For a long time. One of those deep life-long-pining kind of wants. Sorry, not going to share what it is here in the blogosphere. Not yet, at …
READ THE ESSAY ↗Couples, Stop Should’ing All Over Each Other!
Meet Vivian. An otherwise sane, sometimes even saintly, woman. A wise & wonderful woman. A woman like you and me. And yet, a woman who is unwittingly wreaking the worst kind of havoc in…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Israeli Inter-dependence Day
It’s Israeli Independence Day – and I am sitting here in the wildly leaping heart of Jerusalem. The fireworks are expressing themselves something beautiful. The streets are exploding wi…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Ode To A Tin-Foil Kitchen
Passover Cleaning Love it or hate it you can’t escape it might as well make it somethin’ sacred. Celebrated. – It’s all about how you frame it. And I’ll tell you how cause I’ve donned …
READ THE ESSAY ↗Yes, Giving Birth Can Be Ecstasy
There’s this documentary I saw when I was getting ready to give birth to this here one-month old miracle strapped to my chest as I type. The documentary was entitled “Orgasmic Birth”. A…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Women Rapping Tefillin
These are my tefillin straps. – A religious woman’s tension over how to act. Bound & taut with what we’ve been taught, we wear our paradox upon our heads – like a bright black box. But …
READ THE ESSAY ↗The Laryngitis Of Jewish Women
It was the bris which broke the camel’s back. I was another skirt at the outskirts of another ritual act. Standing en pointe straining my ears while some distant ceremony was unfolding …
READ THE ESSAY ↗Welcome, Paris. With Love, From Jerusalem.
Welcome, Paris It is 4 am and I am up again like so many other pre-dawn mornings spent wrapped in blankets of worry. Like when the war this summer left me sleepless, speechless in the h…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Speaking Of Miracles…
“Advertise Miracles” – that’s the Hanukah mission statement. ‘Tis the season to make some noise about how G!d is really the One running the show. In that spirit, I want to add a few sto…
READ THE ESSAY ↗From Ferguson To Palestine – PreOccupation Is The Crime
Perhaps you’ve seen the images. Perhaps you too cocked your head, spit out your coffee in disbelief and pondered aloud, “WTF!? That’s one whopper of a non-sequitur!” Did that young man’…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Feeling “Peaced Off”
After the latest greatest wholesale slaughter of Jews in a Jerusalem synagogue I received a message from a concerned friend in America. She wrote that her heart was breaking… for both s…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Lifestyles of the Spiritually Rich & Famous
Nachlaot, Jerusalem: We’re all living homeless and on the streets around here. And yet we strut about like millionaires, partying like rock stars…spiritual rock stars that is. It’s Sukk…
READ THE ESSAY ↗The Spiritual Path Of Getting Fat
Okay ladies (because I know I lost the men with the title), this one is for all of you big-boned un-toned full-bosomed full-blown beauties out there who struggle daily with your face in…
READ THE ESSAY ↗I Heard A Heavenly Voice...And Why I'm Finally Talking About It
I was fresh off the bus. In so many ways. It was my maiden journey, my first full-blown foray into Israel, into Torah-learning in a proper Seminary. I was post-college, Jewishly unpolis…
READ THE ESSAY ↗The Four Children of Rosh Hashana - Interactive Reading for Your RH table
A core theme of Rosh Hashana is CHANGE. The Hebrew word 'Shana' - meaning year - shares it's root with the word 'shinui' - meaning 'change'. We could thus creatively reread Rosh Hashana…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Prayer for #BringBackOurBoys
I'm sitting here shocked that the sun rose today. Going about my automatic daily tasks...all the while, framed with a backdrop of uneasy angry grief over the kidnapping of these 3. Our …
READ THE ESSAY ↗Passover - Cleaning kitchens with a vengeance
It's always amazing to walk through Jerusalem's streets and see everyone knee-deep in dirt flanked with cleaning detergent & blowtorches. All of us sweating our way through this communa…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Peace Accords of the Hospital Ward
Peace Accords of the Hospital Ward Do you remember me my Arab sister 6am frantic panicked at the hospital in the heart of Jerusalem? We brushed arms as we rushed our girls along that si…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Here's to Tu B'Av!
Here's to the day when sisters danced in vineyard circles wearing each other's finest white dresses. The day when matches were made and the tribes were allowed to intermarry, when Binya…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Yom Yerushalayim - Jerusalem, the Burning Bush
Yerushalayim means “Ir Shalom” - City of Peace. And yet, it has been destroyed twice, attacked 52 times, besieged 23 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times. How can this city, so b…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Passover: What's it all 4?
Why are there so many 4’s in the seder? First, dimensionality. You take a point, it has no dimension to it. You add another point and you have a line, the dimension of length. You add a…
READ THE ESSAY ↗B'shalach: Miriam's Song of Circles
This week is Shabbat Shira – the Sabbath of song, of poetry. It is thus named because the weekly Torah reading contains Shirat Hayam, the song sung in exultation after the miraculous pa…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Collision: Making Sense of the Violence
I am struck by the fact that the Torah reading for this harrowing week of Gazan conflict contains none other than the archetypal tale of Jacob’s ladder. The narrative opens with a power…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Toldot: Hunting Down One Good Prayer
In this week's parsha we read that Isaac prayed for his barren wife Rebecca. It is notable that the term used here is “lanochach eshto”, which can be read literally as he prayed “standi…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Chayei Sara: Sara's Protest
This week's parsha – entitled 'The Life of Sara' – ironically opens with the news of her death. And yet there is no explicit mention of why she died. The commentators jump to fill in th…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Vayera: Dig in!
This parsha is replete with drama. Visiting angels, sodomy, mass destruction, incest, miraculous births, splintered households. So much to write about. And yet, what sprung out at me (p…
READ THE ESSAY ↗In Honor of Reb Shlomo
I never had the schut of meeting Shlomo. But I did get one encounter-at-a-distance. It was sort of like smelling the bakery without really tasting the challah...though that shmek sure d…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Lech Lecha: "Go to You!"
10/25/2012 Abraham's journey is the supreme example of divine calling. His story models for us our own journeys of setting out on unmapped spiritual paths. It is a compass for our own …
READ THE ESSAY ↗Vayeshev: Will Everybody Please Sit Down
“Vayeshev, And Jacob sat in the land of his father’s sojournings…” Ah, Jacob sat. Or as most translate, Jacob dwelt. But for the meditative among us, this opening line can be read as a …
READ THE ESSAY ↗Tzav: Making the Most of a Negative Thought
This week's reading delves into finely detailed descriptions of the Tabernacle's sacrifices. How do we understand and integrate these images of the ritualized blood and fire into our li…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Parshat Tetzaveh: Dangling Between
This parsha displays the vast and varied details of the making of the priestly garments. One of my favorite themes found here is in the fact that the hems of the tunic are to be decorat…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Teruma: What are you offering?
This parsha deals extensively with the people’s offerings towards the building of the Mishkan; the mobile Temple known in English as the Tabernacle. Midrash HaGadol takes the 15 materia…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Mishpatim: Eye for an Eye leaves the whole world blind
This week we read parshat Mishpatim, the parsha of “Laws”. Amongst the plethora of laws there inscribed is the well-known injunction of 'ayin tachat ayin - an eye for an eye'. It states…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Parshat Yitro: Sinai in the Womb
The highlight of parshat Yitro is Revelation at Sinai. The great receiving of the Torah. In a parallel image of revelation, the Talmud (Niddah 30b) teaches that each of us learns the en…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Bo: Embracing Pharodox
The opening of this week's Torah reading is God's command to Moses: “Bo el Paroh”. All too often this is translated (or rather mistranslated) as, “Go to Pharoah.” But in fact, “Bo” clea…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Parshat Shmot: Agitating for Inner-Peace
This week we meet Shifra and Puah – the Hebrew midwives who stand in defiance of Pharoah. Pharoah demands that they kill every male child born. They realize that were they to refuse Pha…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Vayehi: Gather Up and Listen Up!
In this week's reading we witness the famous death-bed scene of Jacob calling forth his sons to relay to them what will happen “b'aharit hayamim” in the final days . This is the first t…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Parshat Vayigash: In Search of Serach
This week we read of the members of Jacob's family who went down to Egypt. There were 53 grandsons listed, but only a single granddaughter – Serach, the daughter of Asher. The commentat…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Vayishlach: The Wait
In last week's reading we witnessed the Biblical love-at-first-sight story of Jacob meeting Rachel. Heroically, Jacob rolls the massive stone from atop the well to water her flock. Roma…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Vayetze: Building Houses out of Words
This weeks parsha is built upon the theme of House. After all, it is within this parsha that Jacob builds his home – replete with 4 wives, 12 children and a vast caravan of animals and …
READ THE ESSAY ↗Noach: Transcending our Arcs of Comfort
10/24/2011 This week we meet Noah. The literal translation of Noah's name, Noach, also means comfort. Thus, “Noah's Ark” can actually be read as “Comfort's Ark”. The ark of comfort stan…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Rosh Hashanah - In Need of Editing!
The highly symbolic metaphor of writing punctuates (pun intended) our High Holiday experience. God, after all, is not just a creator or an orator. God is a writer, scribbling notes abo…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Ki Tavo: Ever Feel like you have nothing to offer?
This week's Parsha contains the mitzvah of Bikkurim – the ceremonial offering of the first fruits. The Talmud [Bava Kama 92a] comments regarding this ceremony, "the poor get poorer". Wh…
READ THE ESSAY ↗On Shared Mourning & Shared Housing
(This is an excerpt from my one-woman show "Babel's Daughter". I have skipped forward in the play to the point below because of its mournful tones and Tisha B'Av-related content. This e…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Parshat Korach: To Give
When I watch the world’s strife on the television screen I long for the days of flaming fire pans and budding branches…of revealed answers. Like with Korach. An argument arose, Korach’s…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Shlach - From Ants to Gi'ANTS!
This week we read, “Shlach, send out the spies.” - The infamous scouting out of the Land of Israel to see if it is indeed hospitable…and conquerable. This is the narrative that inspired…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Yom Ha'atzmaut: A Pisgah Parable
At the finale of the Torah we read, “And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah…and the Lord showed him all the land…” (34:1) Pisgah was the specifi…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Emor: Shvitzing Something Epic
Parshat Emor: Shvitzing Something Epic - Priests at the Gate 05/05/2011 0 Comments This week's parsha opens with the injunction to the Kohanim/priests, “Let none defile himself for a de…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Metzora: "What is the gift of your symptom?"
This week we read of how the plague of tzaarat, biblical leprosy, is not limited to skin, but also appears on houses and clothing. The text reads, “When you come into the land of Canaan…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Shemini: In Response to Lives Lost
This week's reading places before us the sobering tale of the deaths of Nadav and Avihu, the sons of Aaron. The grand-opening & dedication of the Tabernacle is in full swing. God has co…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Purim
Purim revolves around the revelation of the hidden. After all, the core text we read during Purim is the Megillah. A word which shares its root with 'gilui' revelation. There is an ecst…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Pekudai: Accounting for the Flaw
The title of this week's reading literally translates as 'accountings'. A title that makes sense, given that this is the final parsha of the entire Book of Exodus. This is the culminati…
READ THE ESSAY ↗Ki Tissa: An Antidote To Impatience
Parshat Ki Tissa contains the great biblical tragedy of the Golden Calf. Strikingly, this idolatrous debacle is preceeded by an injunction to keep Shabbat. 1 It begs the question, why i…
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