Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Feb 9, 2012, 8:09 am
Wake up before the alarm. Linger in bed for five more minutes. Shower. Recite Modah Ani in the shower. Dress. Listen for the toddler: not making any noise. Good, a few minutes to check email. Check email. Respond. Close up laptop, go downstairs, enter the toddler's room. Watch him sleep, a comma...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Feb 8, 2012, 7:00 am
Remember last Sukkot? The sound of cornstalks rustling on the roof of my car as I drove slowly home from Renton's farmer's market. The trees on our hills still bright with fading leaves. Carrying my lulav and etrog out to the sukkah in the rain-washed morning, and shaking them in all four directions...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Feb 7, 2012, 3:01 pm
 for Dale   It was said of Reb Simcha Bunim that he carried two slips of paper, one in each pocket. On one he wrote: Bishvili nivra ha-olam -- "for my sake the world was created." On the other he wrote: V'anokhi afar v'efer -- "I am but dust and ashes."   In my p...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Feb 7, 2012, 11:08 am
Image borrowed from Mercy Caregivers. As part of my class in sage-ing last semester, I imagined my own death. We all did -- everyone in that class -- and once the meditation was complete, we talked about it with one another. I found it quite powerful to imagine what I might want my deat...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Feb 6, 2012, 10:55 am
One of the stories we read at Tu BiShvat (the New Year of the Trees -- this Wednesday) is the tale of Honi ha-Magel, Honi the Circle-Drawer. Honi was a Jewish miracle worker during the first century before the Common Era, known for his ability to bring rain. It's a fascinating story. The vers...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Feb 6, 2012, 8:32 am
I'm not writing weekly Torah poems this year. (Perhaps not surprisingly, I'm finding that balancing a congregational rabbinate and mothering a two-year-old is keeping me plenty busy!) But in years past I've written poems arising out of this week's Torah portion -- parashat Yitro -- and since poetry,...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Feb 2, 2012, 8:15 am
Deep thanks to Lilith, the awesome magazine of feminism and Judaism, for the generous review of 70 faces, my collection of Torah poems  (Phoenicia Publishing, 2011). The review appeared in the Fall 2011 issue, alongside reviews of poetry collections by Linda Pastan, Merle Feld, and Adrienne ...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Feb 1, 2012, 7:06 am
My second post is up at poetree -- On poetry, Judaism, and being (or not being) a "religious poet". Here's how it begins: A ... I took my MFA at Bennington. It was an amazing experience. I still miss the ways in which being a poetry grad student gave me "permission" to focus on poetry...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 31, 2012, 11:24 am
It's a funny way of inhabiting time, this Jewish calendar of ours. Every seventh day a holiday. Every new moon a holiday. And then, studding the year like jewels in a crown, the festivals, each with its own music, its own flavor, both literally and metaphorically. Right now we're ascending to...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 31, 2012, 8:27 am
Earlier in January, a dear friend's shul was vandalized and broken-into. I posted about it, and generous readers contributed $984. Here is a thank-you note from the leaders of that shul, to all of you. To the contributors to Reb Rachel's "Pass the Hat for a Vandalized Shul Campaign," &#...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 30, 2012, 9:17 am
For those who are interested in poetry conversations, feel free to check out the online poetry community poetree, where moderator J.J. Hunter has graciously invited me to host conversations this week. (Luisa Igloria, whose work I greatly admire, was poetry host there last week. I'm in terrific compa...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 26, 2012, 2:00 pm
Hey: did you realize that Passover begins in just over ten weeks? :-) I've been working this winter on a revision of the Velveteen Rabbi's Haggadah for Pesach -- specifically, a revision which is suitable for use at my congregation. This is substantially abridged from the most recent e...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 25, 2012, 7:00 am
Two years-and-a-bit ago, at the ALEPH Kallah in Ohio, I had the opportunity to sing with Linda Hirschhorn. While I was there, I interviewed her for Zeek. (I mentioned that in one of my blog posts from the conference that year: Kallah, another day in the life.) For reasons which don't bear exploratio...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 23, 2012, 10:12 am
Contributors' copies of Religion & Literature volume 43.2! The genre is an ancient one. Throughout the history of the Diaspora, Jewish imagination has flourished through midrash, elaborating on the tales and characters of the Hebrew Bible. But the postwar period has produced a sur...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 22, 2012, 9:17 pm
I am utterly, endlessly, delighted to have sparked Rabbi Barbara (Shulamit) Thiede's essay Jewish Renewal's Red Boots. Reb Shulamit and I were admitted to the ALEPH rabbinic ordination program at the same time. (Somewhere I still have the email which Reb Marcia, our dean, sent to the s...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 21, 2012, 11:03 am
Here's the d'var Torah I'll be offering during services at my shul this morning. This week we read one of the most dramatic narratives in Torah: the story of the ten plagues. (Or, at least, the first eight plagues; the final two will come next week.) Intriguingly, the idea of calling these "p...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 19, 2012, 5:37 pm
Several of y'all have asked, over the years, whether I have considered podcasting. This winter, I thought I'd give it a try. I'm not promising that these podcasts will come out on any specific timetable. (I'm a congregational rabbi and the mother of a toddler; I've got all the deadlines I can...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 19, 2012, 7:00 am
WinterPsalm WINTER PSALM   The wind whips spirals of snow dervishes dancing across icy asphalt snowplows call out to one another backing up to ply their routes again the atmosphere looms, pregnant with the promise of precipitation and I? I scatter...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 18, 2012, 7:00 am
Image borrowed from this post at storify. Many of the internet's leading websites are "going dark" today to protest, and raise consciousness of, the danger of the impending passage of SOPA and PIPA, two pieces of US legislation which run the risk of destroying the internet as we know it. I...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 17, 2012, 5:09 pm
This coming Shabbat, I'm planning to lead a service at my shul where contemporary poetry is juxtaposed with the traditional Hebrew liturgy. My hope is that the poems will offer new ways of understanding the liturgy, and vice versa. Just as a diamond-cutter uses one diamond to open new facets in anot...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 15, 2012, 7:00 am
The moon of Tevet is beginning to wane. It will shrink down to nothingness and then grow again. When it next reaches roundness, the date will be the 15th of the month of Shvat: the full moon of the deep-winter lunar month when, Jewish tradition tells us, the sap begins to rise again to nurture trees...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 14, 2012, 6:14 pm
Just before this past Shabbat, a small shul in New York City was broken-into and vandalized. The shul is Temple Beth-El of City Island -- "your shul by the sea" -- and its spiritual leader is Rabbi Shohama Wiener, the director of the ALEPH Hashpa'ah (spiritual direction) ordination program through w...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 14, 2012, 12:52 pm
Here's the d'var Torah I gave this morning at Congregation Beth Israel. (Originally posted at the From the Rabbi blog.) In this week's Torah portion we re-enter one of my favorite stories, and one of the deepest stories, about Moshe Rabbenu, our teacher Moses. It is also, I believe, a s...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 13, 2012, 7:00 am
Getting my wings. Photo by Janice Rubin. At the Ohalah conference of Jewish Renewal clergy this year I was ordained a second time, as a Mashpi'ah Ruchanit -- a Jewish Spiritual Director. This journey began three years ago, with the first winter intensive retreat of this second hashpa'ah trainin...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 11, 2012, 7:00 am
Dear ALEPH and Ohalah hevre, Y'all are awesome. Okay, I don't actually know all of you. Even after six Ohalah conferences, I don't quite know everyone in Ohalah, and it's a little bit surreal to discover that I don't know all of the ALEPH ordination students anymore, either. But many of yo...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 10, 2012, 6:00 am
Sufi calligraphy; image borrowed from Rumi Online. You could be forgiven for imagining that all my rabbinic community does, when we get together, is pray. It's not true, of course. The Ohalah conference includes all sorts of plenary sessions and workshops. Also we schmooze, study together, brea...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 9, 2012, 7:00 am
There's really nothing like the experience of praying with a room full of people who I know and love (and who know and love me), all of whom know and love the liturgy, all of whom offer prayers with song and joy. This is one of the things which is most revitalizing to me about spending time with my ...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Jan 8, 2012, 7:00 am
How lucky I am that these are two glimpses of my first week of January: A stream running at the foot of Shaker Mountain, which I climbed last Wednesday with dear friends on a geocaching excursion. (The mountain, I mean, not the stream.) A stream at the trailhead of a trail some...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 2, 2011, 7:00 am
I just got my copy of Seminary Ridge Review, issue 14:1, Autumn 2011, in which three of my poems appear. It's a beautiful magazine, published by Lutheran Theological Seminary. The Table of Contents contains articles including "A Contextual Reading of the Parable of the Persisisting Widow: An Indian ...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Nov 1, 2011, 7:00 am
David Verzi, who interviewed me for the Berkshire Jewish Voice in December of 2006, back when I was in rabbinic school (Rachel Barenblat: "When Can I Run and Play with the Real Rabbis?") interviewed me again recently; I'm honored by his portrayal, and hope I can live up to his kind words. The artic...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 31, 2011, 7:00 am
... / non-festival morning during tachanun (the penitential prayers), and some recite ... mean) and we ask forgiveness for our misdeeds and offer forgiveness ... forgiven. Protector of bereaved and the helpless, watch over my loved ... for me soon; how can I honestly write a deathbed prayer .....
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 30, 2011, 10:07 am
This coming Shabbat morning, we're trying something new at my shul -- a contemplative chant-based Shabbat morning service. (What do I mean by that? Learn more.) This is a kind of davenen I discovered when I first encountered Jewish Renewal; it is one of many different modes of Jewish prayer, and it ...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 29, 2011, 5:02 pm
On Shabbat Noach -- having read, this morning, the verses wherein God promises Noah and his sons that the rainbow is the sign that God will never again destroy the world with flood -- I can't resist posting this photo, taken in Paris a few days ago: Rainbow over the Left Bank. (If yo...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 28, 2011, 7:00 am
I love davening Hallel in community with Drew. The psalms of Hallel are recited -- sung, traditionally, to a variety of melodies -- on festivals, new moon, times of celebration. They're meant to be sung with great gusto and spirit. And sometimes, I find, groups of adults get self-conscious abou...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 27, 2011, 2:55 pm
I just received the final print issue of Zeek in my mailbox. For nine years Zeek has published a beautiful hardcopy print issue, separate from but related to its online edition; from now on Zeek exists purely online, at zeek.forward.com. Anyway, the print issue is focused on education -- specificall...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 27, 2011, 7:00 am
It was good to go... ...and it is good to return! (Drew actually has a cold, so we haven't been to any playgrounds since I came home, so this photo is from last week, before we left town, but the general point still stands -- I loved spending four days abroad with Ethan, and n...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 25, 2011, 6:26 am
Many thanks to the folks at my high school alma mater, Saint Mary's Hall, for their kind profile of me in the school's periodical publication The Shield! I get a tremendous kick out of seeing my high school yearbook photo juxtaposed with a photo of me from my installation as rabbi of Congregation Be...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 21, 2011, 10:00 am
Back in July, when I began planning my first Days of Awe as a pulpit rabbi, I said to Ethan, "We should pick a weekend after all the holidays are over, and find a way to spend that weekend doing something fun together." We knew already that he was going to be starting his new gig at MIT and wou...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 20, 2011, 7:00 am
I haven't been writing many poems lately. (Somehow the Days of Awe are a busy time for working rabbis; go figure.) I wanted to jump-start my poetry practice again, and I've often found that a sestina is a good way to do that. (And I haven't posted one here in a while -- I think the last sestina I po...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 18, 2011, 9:14 am
Sukkot has been -- as expected -- fairly rainy. But there have still been some beautiful Sukkot moments this year. I'm not sure these snapshots are worth a thousand words apiece, but here are some windows into our Sukkot this year:   Schach, closeup. Drew sits in t...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 18, 2011, 7:00 am
At the end of Sukkot come three holidays in rapid succession: first Hoshanah Rabbah, then Shemini Atzeret, then Simchat Torah. On Hoshanah Rabbah we pray for rain and for salvation; on Shemini Atzeret we savor the mystical pause of the 8th day; and on Simchat Torah we rejoice in the wonder of our ne...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 17, 2011, 11:22 am
There's something a little bit funny about having a computer crash at the start of Sukkot. Sukkot is a festival of impermanence, when we're meant to leave our houses and dwell for a week in fragile huts with roofs through which one can see the stars as they emerge over the week of the moon's waning....
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 11, 2011, 8:07 am
Cornstalks on the roof of my car. In years past, we've used our ger -- the small round Mongolian-style house which we and our friends assemble as extra guest space for our annual New Year's gathering -- as the framework for our sukkah. It was lovely: roundish (shaped like a cursive letter samec...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 9, 2011, 1:16 pm
Drew with my parents on Shabbat Shuvah; gentle yoga on Yom Kippur. 1. Seeing my parents who had come all the way from south Texas (and also seeing Ethan!) beaming at me from the kahal as I led my first Rosh Hashanah services as a rabbi. Having them there was amazing: riches upon riches. And, of...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 8, 2011, 12:00 pm
August Rain, After Haying Through sere trees and beheaded grasses the slow rain falls. Hay fills the barn; only the rake and one empty wagon are left in the field. In the ditches goldenrod bends to the ground. Even at noon the house is dark. In my room under the eaves I hear the steady be...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 7, 2011, 7:00 pm
I’m going to let you in on a secret: this is one of my favorite days of the year. It’s not that I enjoy being hungry, or standing up here at the front of a room as my body grows increasingly weary, or reminding myself of all the ways in which I’ve missed the mark over the year we’ve jus...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 7, 2011, 2:05 pm
The drive is glorious: up into Vermont, first on what passes around here for a major road, then onto a dirt road, then onto an even tinier dirt road. The views of furrowed mountains, green turning to red and orange and gold, are breathtaking. Last night there was a frost. The new season is coming.&#...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 6, 2011, 2:11 pm
My fingers smell of etrog. It's the day before Yom Kippur. I'm neck-deep in preparations for the holiday: I meet with my cantorial soloist to talk through the services, print a few last-minute materials, add names to the list of those for whom we pray for healing, punch holes in the guided medi...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 5, 2011, 7:00 am
Listen   LISTEN   The craving for distraction -- maybe you should open four different social networks in four adjacent tabs -- is a messenger. Some part of you wants to pretend you're not feeling tender. Your beating heart is too big, too vulnerable. You've stretche...
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Rachel B. posted an article on Velveteen Rabbi - Oct 4, 2011, 7:00 am
I received a little new year's gift from the universe when I learned that Rabbi Jonathan Singer of Temple Beth Am had read one of my poems -- "People of the Book," originally published in the first issue of Drash: Northwest Mosaic back in 2007 -- during Rosh Hashanah services. I'm always happy when ...
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