Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 28, 2009, 1:26 pm
Ethan and I are delighted to announce the arrival of our son into the world!Andrew Wynn ZuckermanBorn November 28, 2009 / 11 Kislev 5770 He is named after our maternal grandmothers, Alice Frie...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 26, 2009, 8:46 am
When I first went to Elat Chayyim in 2002, back at the old venue in the Catskills, and first experienced the discipline of heartfelt daily prayer as an adult, I was struck by the modah ani prayer for ...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 25, 2009, 5:16 pm
HATCH (VAYETZEI) The question no one asked: what did I want to bring with me from the old hacienda, every rock and bush familiar as my own palm? What talismans of my childhood could I se...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 25, 2009, 6:00 am
This seems to be a good week for me and poetry! The editors at Scribblers on the Roof have kindly published one of my Torah poems (the second one to see print this week, go figure) -- this time the po...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 24, 2009, 8:34 am
HOMEMADE Little cubes, packed with plump golden raisins between sheets of waxed paper I can still taste their sweetness creamy on my tongue the recipe, reliant on jarred marshmallow fluff, w...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 23, 2009, 7:29 am
I'm delighted to be able to announce that I have a poem in the new issue of the online journal Melusine -- the Fall 2009 issue, issue 1.3 -- alongside some old friends and colleagues who I know fr...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 20, 2009, 12:24 pm
This fall I'm taking a class called "Torah Journeys" with Rabbi Shefa Gold. Reb Shefa is teaching us her method of intensely personal exegesis, as appears in her excellent collection of parshaniyu...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 20, 2009, 8:19 am
As I mentioned a while back, my final project for my psalms tutorial is an exploration of two psalms which have classically been associated with childbirth, one of which is psalm 20, which begins "May...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 19, 2009, 12:06 pm
BIRTHINGS (TOLDOT) Eleh tol'dot Yitzchak these are Isaac's generations this is the history but generations shares a root with birthings seems to me this portion ought to begin ...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 18, 2009, 4:04 pm
Part 3 of a series of blog posts arising out of final reflections on the class Moadim l'Simcha, "Seasons of Our Rejoicing," which I recently completed. Part 1 can be found here and part 2 can be ...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 17, 2009, 7:44 am
I wake on my own time, when my pregnant bladder demands. I doze some more. I decide to rise. I check blood pressure, shower, take my morning meds, and putter my way down to the kitchen, pausing to ret...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 16, 2009, 1:03 pm
... speak to me deeply. Another answer is that I hope to continue teaching the Besht's teachings, on the theory that the best way to learn ... step back from active text study and teaching in ...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 13, 2009, 11:24 am
The late-night drive to the hospital sometime before one's child is born is a rite of passage. Almost every pair of expectant parents I know has done it. Maybe there's a preterm labor scare, o...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 11, 2009, 9:52 am
DEPARTURE (CHAYYEI SARAH) I'd never been further from home than Aram of Two Rivers where the Tigris and Euphrates flow together in a muddy swirl sometimes on market day I'd buy figs, sh...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 9, 2009, 7:38 am
One of my favorite classes this (brief but intense) term has been a tutorial in psalms, which I'm taking with one fellow student, taught by Norman Shore. Each week he assigns us a few psalms to tr...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 4, 2009, 6:21 am
AFTERMATH (VAYERA) The oaks touch branches like a gaggle of old women taking comfort in fingers brushing as they stand and sway. A man sits in the entrance of his tent. Heat shimmers though ben...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 3, 2009, 9:45 am
A few weeks ago I participated in a rabbinic conference call with Judge Goldstone, of the Goldstone Report, and shared a transcript of that call along with some reflections here on this blog (A confer...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 2, 2009, 7:45 am
... that I find it hard to write about, at least in prose. I've written half a dozen poems on the subject since I found out I was pregnant last Pesach, but they aren't ready for public consu...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 1, 2009, 2:27 pm
Part 2 of a series of blog posts arising out of final reflections on the class Moadim l'Simcha, "Seasons of Our Rejoicing," which I recently completed. Part 1 can be found here. It might be...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 30, 2009, 4:15 pm
Some of you may remember that back in August I was part of a Retreat for Emerging Jewish and Muslim Leaders. I blogged very briefly from the retreat, and later wrote an essay about the experience, whi...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 30, 2009, 1:55 pm
There's an interesting post about Jon Stewart and the Middle East at Talking Points Memo: Jon Stewart Creates Sea Change on Middle East Coverage. (More reasons to love Jon Stewart! Not that I real...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 30, 2009, 10:54 am
I've been keeping an eye on my corner of the blogosphere in search of interesting reflections on the JStreet conference, and here are a few things I've found which I think are worth reading. ...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 29, 2009, 12:41 pm
I have nine posts -- roughly 32,000 words -- to offer from my two days of liveblogging the first JStreet conference. You can find all of them in the JStreet category, or use the handy chronological li...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 29, 2009, 7:27 am
... , so it's not surprising that I felt similarly here. I'm sorry that the planned poetry performance was canceled because a case was made that the poet in question wasn't sufficien...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 27, 2009, 4:36 pm
Happy news: Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture (where I am, as y'all probably know, a contributing editor) has found a new online home with The Jewish Daily Forward, the biggest Jewish...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 24, 2009, 3:35 pm
I'm tag-teaming today, as I did yesterday, with my partner in crime (and husband) Ethan Zuckerman to liveblog the 2009 iteration of the fabulous Pop!Tech conference in Camden, Maine. You can read ...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 24, 2009, 2:25 pm
I'm tag-teaming today, as I did yesterday, with my partner in crime (and husband) Ethan Zuckerman to liveblog the 2009 iteration of the fabulous Pop!Tech conference in Camden, Maine. You can read ...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 24, 2009, 11:48 am
I'm tag-teaming today, as I did yesterday, with my partner in crime (and husband) Ethan Zuckerman to liveblog the 2009 iteration of the fabulous Pop!Tech conference in Camden, Maine. You can read ...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 24, 2009, 11:04 am
... dividends in all three of these areas. "I also learned something else very hopeful -- that all food, every calorie you have ever eaten, comes ultimately from the sun." ... year in a farm lik...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 24, 2009, 9:37 am
I'm tag-teaming today, as I did yesterday, with my partner in crime (and husband) Ethan Zuckerman to liveblog the 2009 iteration of the fabulous Pop!Tech conference in Camden, Maine. You can read ...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 24, 2009, 9:01 am
I'm tag-teaming today, as I did yesterday, with my partner in crime (and husband) Ethan Zuckerman to liveblog the 2009 iteration of the fabulous Pop!Tech conference in Camden, Maine. You can read ...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 23, 2009, 6:04 pm
I'm tag-teaming today and tomorrow with my partner in crime (and husband) Ethan Zuckerman to liveblog the 2009 iteration of the fabulous Pop!Tech conference in Camden, Maine. You can read about to...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 23, 2009, 5:22 pm
I'm tag-teaming today and tomorrow with my partner in crime (and husband) Ethan Zuckerman to liveblog the 2009 iteration of the fabulous Pop!Tech conference in Camden, Maine. You can read about to...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 23, 2009, 4:53 pm
I'm tag-teaming today and tomorrow with my partner in crime (and husband) Ethan Zuckerman to liveblog the 2009 iteration of the fabulous Pop!Tech conference in Camden, Maine. You can read about to...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 23, 2009, 3:10 pm
I'm tag-teaming today and tomorrow with my partner in crime (and husband) Ethan Zuckerman to liveblog the 2009 iteration of the fabulous Pop!Tech conference in Camden, Maine. You can read about to...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 10, 2009, 2:59 pm
GESHEM (RAIN) Millennia ago, the earth was washed in water connections sparked unimaginable across the water the life we know begins cradled in water each human being emerges in a flood of wate...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 9, 2009, 6:30 am
I recently encountered a beautiful teaching by the Sefat Emet (Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter of Ger; I've blogged his teachings many times before.) This is one of his teachings for Hoshanna Rabba...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 8, 2009, 1:01 pm
Sitting in the sukkah reading Ilana Pardes' Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach, I have one of those moments where I feel like I'm getting away with something, earning credit f...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 8, 2009, 7:49 am
ATZERET (SLONIMER MASH-UP) Two days are called atzeret, the 8th day of Sukkot and Shavuot, when God asks us to linger if seven represents the whole of a week eight implies fullness and then s...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 7, 2009, 6:24 am
A while back, Rabbi Ben Greenberg, an Orthodox chaplain at Harvard Hillel who blogs at A Yiddishe Thought, contacted me to ask whether he could reprint some of my #Torah tweets in a short collection. ...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 6, 2009, 8:38 am
... not about ephemeral (and uncontrollable) happiness, but about joy. Cultivating an attitude of joy is within our control. Regular prayer is one of the primary ways that I cultivate joy. So are th...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 4, 2009, 10:59 am
Friday evening I got a message that the rabbi was unwell; could I lead services on Saturday morning? Of course, I said. He emailed me the creative Hallel handout he'd assembled, told me which Tora...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 2, 2009, 8:40 am
PERMEABLE Today I'll finish our sukkah stacking old wildflowers to hint at roof, twining tinsel around the slats all year we imagine our houses are our houses stable and comfortable waterp...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Sep 30, 2009, 8:28 am
1. I wear my prayer shawl at night Kol Nidre is the only night of the year when we wear our tallitot (prayer shawls). Usually the prayer shawl is worn only for morning prayer. But Yom Kippur is con...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Sep 27, 2009, 8:08 am
I'm off to Elat Chayyim / Isabella Freedman today to spend Yom Kippur on retreat. Earlier in the summer I was sad that I didn't find a student pulpit within driving distance of home (my doctor...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Sep 24, 2009, 8:34 am
RECORDING (HA-AZINU) God doesn't talk to us anymore and the old recordings sound tinny and dated when we replay Moshe's speech about awe and vengeance, God's arrows drunk with blood...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Sep 23, 2009, 6:30 am
Here's the d'var Torah I wrote back in 2006 for this week's Torah portion. This is the last of the weekly Torah portions; the final portion in the Torah is read not as part of the regular ...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Sep 22, 2009, 8:33 am
I tend to think of the equinoxes and solstices as happening on the 21st of the months in which they occur. There's a simple reason for this: my birthday is March 21, and when I was growing up I ...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Sep 21, 2009, 9:50 am
The most powerful moment of my Rosh Hashanah came about in this way: I arrived at the synagogue early for services on the first morning of Rosh Hashanah so I could set up for the childrens' servic...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Sep 19, 2009, 11:00 am
Tonight at sundown, as Jews mark the end of Shabbat with havdalah and celebrate the transition from the first day of Rosh Hashanah to the second day of Rosh Hashanah, our Muslim friends and cousins wi...
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