An essay in which I puzzle over oddities in the Torah text (and in rabbinic response to it) that gravitate around Joseph’s feminine looks, clothing, emotions, social role, and body (with provocative references to knees, breasts, and womb). I also explore my own relationship with Joseph’s stories and what it feels like to find in Joseph the trancestor that I have long needed.
Read moreGearing Up
There is a hard journey ahead. But we are not barefoot or unequipped. We have experience, ancestors, and middot – powerful values that we can tuck into our backpacks to fortify ourselves and share on the path.
Read moreA Visit from Reb Nick
A special holiday treat (well, it was for me): a recitation of Marie Jaffe's wondrous and winking translation of "A Visit from St. Nick" by Clement Clark Moore from her book, Gut Yontiff Gut Yohr (1965). The cleverness will enthrall the Yiddiscienti; the mere sound of it will entertain the hoi polloi. Gut yontiff, gut yohr!
Read moreStairway to Paradise
Even if we believe that the Divine is all around us and in us, it's hard to shake loose the metaphor of verticality. What do you do to ascend to celestial heights? And how do you pour that back into the everyday?
Read morePost-Election Thoughts, and a Review
I have lived my life believing that the world worth having would be had, and that I would witness it. But since the election, I have realized there are things I imagined I would see in my lifetime that I now know I will not.
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