Pray for Rain

May 18, 2019 Irwin Keller

And when I'm done with some of these specifics, I try to broaden out and pray for love. Always love. That it should enfold this world. That there should be a field of love so thick, so viscous, that it slows bullets and catches falling people.

Queer Medicine for a Dark Week

May 3, 2019 Irwin Keller

When Shabbat falls in the darkest part of the month, the Jewish world reads Torah's queerest story. What is the medicine?

Body of Soul

April 6, 2019 Irwin Keller

Whether or not we agree with the laws in Leviticus, there is something important about Torah's understanding that the physical body produces spiritual states. Our bodies affect the spiritual fabric of the community. The connection between our bodies and our spirits, and between our bodies and our shared spiritual energy, is worth noticing.

Bumping into God

March 16, 2019 Irwin Keller

Or maybe you climb a mountain and spend 40 days and nights sitting in anticipation, maybe meditating, maybe praying. Until the hand of God appears, scribbling madly on stone.

Or maybe you follow a baby goat until you notice a burning bush. Or you chase a stray calf right into a cave filled with the light of Eden.

Or maybe you do nothing at all.

Serenissima

March 2, 2019 Irwin Keller

(L) The women’s gallery of the Scola Tedesca. (R) La Fenice.

And indeed as you stand in the Scola Tedesca and look up at the women's gallery, you see what looks like a theater loge. There are low upright pillars to about knee level, and then a gilded latticework screen up to perhaps the neck of a seated woman, and above that it is open. This gallery is not meant to hide the women, but to foster flirtation.