Joseph is not asking for the transport of their physical bones. Joseph is asking the Children of Israel – asking us – to raise up, to honor, to carry forward with us, their complex and multiple qualities. Their fullness. Their selves. And that is what we are about to do. Even if it has taken 4000 years and 7000 miles to make good on Joseph’s request.
The Animal Instinct (Audio Podcast)
Once upon a time we were animals alongside the other animals – before we evolved the self-awareness that cut us off from the others, that got us caught in our heads, in our bodies, in our civilizations; that got us kicked out of Eden. Now we only have a dim memory of what it is like to be the animals that we are. And so we seek out, through our imaginations and our liturgy and our magic, the connection with the animal world that even the ridiculous amount of DNA we share with other creatures can no longer provide.
Read moreAnyone Can Whistle: Sondheim and our Queer, Jewish Longing to Belong (Audio)
Sondheim's sense of “in it but not of it” is not just a gay vantagepoint in 20th Century art, but a Jewish vantagepoint also. American Ashkenazi Jews of the mid-20th Century, the children or grandchildren of immigrants, were also involved in a struggle to assimilate into a culture that wasn’t theirs. And they often had a dramatic influence on that culture, creating much of what we imagine as American! But still, maybe because of that authorship, having a burdensome awareness of the artificiality of American culture. The arbitrariness of naturalness. So we see in his writing that deep Jewish longing to let go and belong, even while questioning the authenticity of the thing we want to belong to.
Read moreDinah, Rittenhouse, and Male Violence (Audio Podcast)
The acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse comes during the week of Vayishlach, and the painful Torah story of Dinah. What do these stories have to tell us about how our society looks at male violence? And how might we still see, hear, and heal Dinah?
Read moreYHWH Was in this Place (Audio Podcast)
A prophetic dream helps Jacob recognize the Divine that is immanent in space. What do we need to do to have a zap of realization? It's easy when we're in stunning nature. Harder at the hospital.
Read morePutting it to Rest (Audio & Video Podcast)
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?