It's Pride Season. And even though this is a difficult time, we must become adept at holding successes at the same time that we hold struggle. And so a little piece of celebration called "Gifts of the Queers" – a chance to recognize the role that LGBTQI people have played in our culture, including our Jewish culture, that we don't so often identify and name. Audio here.
Read moreCross the Jordan (Audio Podcast)
It is harder to leave the Wilderness than it looks. We are peeking across a border into a Paradise right now, where we could be bigger than we are now; our spirits enormous as giants. But it is easier to stay grasshoppers, shrunken, constricted, hard-shelled, afraid of being trampled.
Read moreTorah Says Witness, Including Your Whiteness (Audio Podcast)
Miriam was struck with the disease, but until Aharon witnessed it, until she was witnessed, it wasn't quite real. How powerful is the act of witnessing – the way it draws something into manifestation! Torah this week is saying: witness. Make it real. You can't work with it until you see it. Miriam didn't have a prayer of being healed until her unexpected – and blessedly temporary – whiteness was witnessed.
Read moreTo Breathe Free (Audio Podcast)
Our European ancestors tossed their tefillin overboard along with their languages, rituals and personal histories. They sacrificed their particularity so that we could be Americans. By which we now understand – so we could be White.
Read moreBring on Some Revelation (with a side of Torah, please) – Audio Podcast
After we emerge from our houses back into the sunlight; after we are all driving and working and buying – we will look around and we will be disappointed. Others will seem not to have shared our visions, or agreed to our mitzvot. Our Revelation will not have turned into Transformation. Yet. So let us make sure that one verse of our Torah is: "Disappointment is to be expected. Disappointment is not an obstacle but fuel for the journey.”
Read moreWilderness and Garden (Audio Podcast)
Maybe the most salient difference between a Wilderness and a Garden is the fact of being witnessed. And the speech waiting for us in the Wilderness? Maybe it’s not chatter and not the earth-shaking thrum of God at Sinai. But the loving voice of a gardener.
Tourist in Shapeless Time (Audio Podcast)
It was easy and heroic to maintain this seclusion for a while, when it was new, when we were constantly problem-solving. When our confinement was itself movement into the unknown. But at this point, I have depleted my internal resources.
Can I let go of my need for every moment of this terrible time to be productive or meaningful or insight-giving? What will it be like to let this time be: let it be its frustrating, tedious, anxious and sad self, without the pressure of having to be the source of global transformation or personal enlightenment?
Read moreA Theology of COVID Times (Audio Podcast)
Where is God in all of this? The answer is, maybe, everywhere. And why isn’t God intervening? Of course God is intervening. In fact we are doing so every day.
Read moreIsolation, AIDS Flashbacks, & Divine Embrace (Audio Podcast)
There are pieces of this isolation I want to remember and bring with me when we are finally able to move freely about the cabin. But I also know that this isolation, no matter how pleasant parts of it may be, is something we will all need to reckon with over time. Because there is injury in going so long not touching and not being touched! Noticing and having to ignore the skin’s desire to feel skin, our bones’ desire to be pressed in an embrace.
Read moreThrough the Lattice (Audio Podcast)
The doe sauntered away, leaving me wondering how we got here. Our glorious, sorry species. How did we end up living this way? So far removed from the rest of Creation that is just outside our door? How did we end up seeing this Earth so imperfectly, as if through carnival glass?
Read moreDreamers, Awake! You've Got Mail (Audio Podcast)
Talmud says a dream uninterpreted is like a letter left unread. What does this if-only-it-were-a-dream time have to say to us?
Read moreThe Mood that Came to Dinner (Audio Podcast)
Anxiety is of no use. It takes up space and disrupts work and relationships. But what if it’s squatting in your house, refusing to leave?
Read morePlanet of Priests (Audio Podcast)
Torah tells us that we are meant to be a nation of priests. It is our calling and our destiny. And now the call is even broader. Because right now we are being called to be a Planet of Priests. Each of us tending the altar of our relationships with God and Earth and each other. Offering up our guilt over the profit-driven, Earth-consuming culture we have allowed to take root. And offering up like fragrant incense our gratitude for the simple and intimate gifts of connection and food and shelter.
Read moreKoved – Audio Version
In this moment of unfolding epidemic, I am called to honor the complexity of the Creation we live in. This Creation in which uncountable species compete for space and survival, including the tiniest ones, who can sometimes, without malice, take down the mightiest among us.
Read moreMay the Angel: A Song for Parashat Vayechi
A song drawn from Jacob’s farewell blessing of his grandchildren.
Read moreChristmas Blessing
When interfaith dialogue goes terribly wrong.
In Suffering: Take Heart (Audio Podcast)
Lying on the floor of an airport, unable to move, one learns lessons about prayer, angelic protection, and being one with the Universe. Not always the lessons one would have wanted to learn.
Read moreBlossom of the Universe – Audio Podcast
Oath of Disloyalty – Chanted
I am not loyal to walls or cages.
I am not loyal to taunts or tweets.
Pray For Rain (Audio Podcast)
When I'm done with some of the prayers for 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.
When I pray, at some point, it is no longer me lofting prayers into the world; it is the world drawing prayers out of me…
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