In Chayei Sarah we see Isaac and Ishmael shoulder to shoulder burying their father. How is it possible to resist the expectation to be enemies and let go of the past's hold on us?
Read moreA Witness of Angels (Audio Podcast)
Maybe Hagar conjured the angel in a vision because in her suffering her thoughts were stuck in her head, and her fear caught tight in her gut, and she needed to be drawn out of herself; she needed to be witnessed from the outside, to witness herself from the outside, in order to make sense of her next steps. And she did.
Read moreOn the Sea (Audio Podcast)
While our bodies are something like 75,000 cubic centimeters of saltwater, our minds, our spirits, are Oceans. It is comforting to be contained in these familiar bodies. But there is something in us that wants to be vast. This is, I think, why we live here, why we go to the Ocean when our spirits are low, why we dream of being on or in the Ocean. We want to recapture the sense of endlessness that our souls once knew.
Theology of the Cubs (Audio Podcast)
In 2016, on the eve of the World Series, during the holiday of Sukkot, amid a nasty and unsettling presidential election, I found myself watching baseball like I hadn’t since childhood. The Cubs, after a 108-year drought, won the World Series title that year. This year, as I begin to ease into SF Giants fandom (gimme a break; I’ve only been in the Bay Area for 32 years), and as we head toward post-season, I think back on the lessons I learned from loving the Cubs, leaving the Cubs, and returning to the Cubs. I decided to repost this essay, written on the eve of the 2016 World Series.
Read moreYou Can't Take it With You: Shmitah and Release (Audio Podcast)
You will not, in death, get the apology that you have been waiting for in life. So why carry it to your grave? Why not imitate the grave now and release the debt? What would it feel like to let go of the apology you think you are owed? What a relief that might be not for them, but for you.
Happy Camper: Entering a Year of Letting Go (Audio Podcast)
On the morning of Day Two, you realize there is no shower coming, and there is no mirror to reflect how well you’ve tamed the wild of your face. There is no internet to amuse you, and no savior to bring the important item you forgot. This is when you begin to surrender. Letting your existence, along with your appearance, go fallow.
This is when I begin to feel the sorrow that comes from living in human civilization, in constant battle with nature, even though I’ve mostly, politely, outsourced that battle to food manufacturers and petroleum companies. I begin to see – and grieve – the outrageous complexity of my life; the expense and fossil fuels and other people’s labor required for me to live the way I do.
Read moreWhat If (Not): Wonderment and Integration in Psalm 27
Psalm 27, the gorgeous, heart-filled, and raw piece of holy poetry that accompanies the month of Elul, challenges us to ask what our lives would be like if we couldn't see the good, the magic, the Divine, in the world around us. What if I couldn't? It's hard to say...
Read moreThe Acronyms of Elul (Audio Podcast)
A Yiddish women's blessing for the month of Elul teaches us that three anagrams forming the word Elul offer us a roadmap for transforming dread to love to action and fulfillment.
Read moreThe Test is Love (Audio Podcast)
Maybe our journeys of hardship and danger are not tests of endurance or tests of faith. If they are tests of anything, maybe they are tests of love.
Read moreEyleh Had'varim: Famous Last Words (Audio Podcast)
Ultimately, an ethical will is for us, not for our children or grandchildren. Because we can’t really control what people in the post-us future will do. We can’t force those who follow us into a mold of our devising. The future belongs to them, not to us, and it is a mistake to cling too tightly.
Read moreThe Light in the Middle of the Tunnel (Audio Podcast)
Since we began sheltering in place, we have, by my count, spent 69 consecutive Shabbatot together, here in this dazzling Zoom Room. Sixty-nine opportunities to sit together and breathe. Six-nine opportunities to gently push back against the narrowness of the time. To feel expansive. Shabbat has been our technology for resilience. The light inside the tunnel.
Not One Left (Audio Podcast)
Moses witnessed the end of a generation. Last week, so did I.
Read moreJunco Torah (Audio Podcast)
The flora and fauna at my house are very, very alive. There are many personalities crowding around our house, and under our house, and sometimes in our house. Each has its own Torah. Each has its unintended teaching for me.
Read moreBlessings During a Surge of Violence (Audio Podcast)
B’rukhah haTikvah
Blessed be my hope, which continues to live. May it be not fantasy but demand. A demand upon heaven and a demand upon earth. May hope be rewarded, speedily, in our time. Rewarded with peace. Rewarded with breath. Rewarded with ordinary, unremarkable coexistence. Rewarded with yet more hope.
Sixes and Sevens (Audio Podcast)
Today is the 6th day of the 7 days of the 6th week of the 7 weeks of the Omer. And here we are in the 6th year of the 7-year shmitah cycle. What does it mean to be in the 6, anticipating the 7?
Mt. Meron, Zohar, and Us (Audio Podcast)
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai died and was buried on Mt. Meron, having instructed his disciples to visit his grave and celebrate his memory annually. Which is what was happening yesterday, because the number of his disciples has grown, no longer ten, but tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and includes all of those people who were there, just as it includes us as well.
To Be Impervious (Audio Podcast)
Oh to be so impervious! To hold the weight of the hardship of the people and for it not to absorb through our skin and into our bones! But no, we are so porous. N’kavim n’kavim chalulim chalulim as we say in our morning prayers. We are porous and penetrable! We were made that way.
Read morePesach 7: Obstacles, Love, Dew, and the Sea (Audio Podcast)
This seventh day of Pesach is an intersection of Shabbat time, Passover time, mythic story, Divine names, the coming of dew, and the poetry of our medieval ancestors. It brings to mind obstacles, liberation, and love. (Or just scroll down for the treats.)
Read moreShabbat HaGadol: Between the Generations (Audio Podcast)
On Shabbat HaGadol we read from the prophet Malachi, who envisions a time when the hearts of children turn toward parents and the hearts of parents toward children. How do we turn our hearts to all the ancestors and to the people who will follow us on this earth? What is the healing we need and the healing we can offer?
Read moreNot-One, Not-Two, Not-Three (Audio Podcast)
Why don’t Jews count people? No sooner do we count ourselves than we notice our extreme vulnerability and ephemerality in this life and this world. And thus the inherent bravery implied in the phrase “stand up and be counted.”
Read more