It seems I’ve been stuck in the waiting place where, according to Dr. Seuss, people wait for all kinds of different things, like “the phone to ring, or the snow to snow, or waiting around for a Yes or No, or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.” Despite knowing I’m not alone there, it’s an uncomfortable place to be. I’ve been thinking about the different expressions we use … Read more
My spouse and I have a longstanding Shabbat afternoon tradition: a friendly game of Scrabble. Okay, I admit, it’s not entirely friendly, which he claims is because I’m too competitive and not a graceful loser, or winner. I’m sure he’d agree our games used to be more friendly when we first began playing, in the months when we started dating. You could even say they were romantic games of Scrabble back then. … Read more
“MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES.” —[erroneously attributed to an] ancient Chinese curse It’s been quite an interesting season leading up to my birthday. And I mean that in the way people use this word as a euphemism for unpleasant. But it hasn’t been entirely unpleasant. Maybe it’s because I’m a Libra that I strive to find balance in all areas of life, to judge all experiences as having good and bad … Read more
Atlanta Pride Parade 2022 (from top left): MACoM at Pride, Rabbis at Pride, Teachers at Pride, Pride Manicure, SOJOURN float leads the way, Dancing Unicorn poses with Rabbi. Early Sunday morning: I take the challah dough out of the fridge where it has been rising slowly overnight. I have just enough time to shape it, apply egg wash, let it come to room temperature, bake it, and remove it from the … Read more
Last week I posted a teaching about teshuvah, quoting from Yaacov David Shulman’s translation of HaRav Kook’s Lights of Teshuvah. I’d like to add a few more thoughts here, beginning with HaRav Kook’s idea that teshuvah itself existed before the world was created: התשובה קדמה לעולם “Teshuvah preceded the world.” I’ve been pondering the meaning of this phrase since first reading it two weeks ago. I believe it is related to Shulman’s … Read more
How long does it take to return? That depends… It’s been almost forty days since I set my sights on teshuvah. Even before the first of the month of Elul, when we begin sounding the shofar to awaken us to return, I’ve been preparing for the final shofar blast at the conclusion of Yom Kippur, thinking about where I want to be then. How I want to be then. As we begin … Read more
Today is the 936th day of March 2020. Today is the 27th day of Elul 5782. I can’t help but notice the discrepancy between the COVID calendar and the Jewish calendar. The former displays a monotonous repetition, each day like the previous one with no productive forward motion. We are stuck in time. Or, perhaps, time itself is stuck, like a broken watch. According to the Jewish calendar, we are nearly ready … Read more
Here in the southeast we started school over a month ago, so this is a bit of a belated Back to School post. I waited until I could share some news from our first interdisciplinary lessons in Spanish 3, which we completed earlier this week. You may recall from a post from fall 2021 that I spent last year working with my friend and colleague, Olivia Rocamora, co-creating interdisciplinary curricular units for two … Read more
[photo credit: Jonah Gottfried] Watching the Lunar Eclipse Voice Memo 1: In the last ten minutes, seeing how it’s slowly disappearing, I can only imagine how the ancient people felt when they saw this. They must have been terrified, or at the very least baffled, confused. What was happening?! It’s very eerie, spooky, Jonah said. Henry doesn’t understand why we’re sitting on the neighbor’s stoop outside in the middle of the … Read more
“We live for seventy years, or eighty, if we are strong. Teach us how short our time is; let us know it in the depths of our souls.” I first met Eugene 32 years ago, when David and I were dating and I had completed 2 years of rabbinical school. I still remember him telling me that he wasn’t “religious.” Yet he was always respectful of my Jewish learning and personal observance. … Read more