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
Our Jewish 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. Now, to take our place in this movement, we have a task – at least those of us who read and live as white – which is to dissimilate. To unlearn. To unlearn all the lessons that whiteness has taught us about who we see and who we don't see…. And whose breath is essential.
Read moreA Planet of Priests
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 – Virus and Humanity
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 moreIrwin, My Tocayo
I was still in the batter's box when Ancestry tossed me a reference to that Isaak Keller, clearly him, with the right birthdate and the right parents. The document Ancestry had found was a death record. 1942. Dachau.
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