Modern spirituality seems to echo advice of an old standard: "accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative." Who doesn't groove on light, love and can-do spirit? Each "yes" of affirmation and empowerment tends to feel good: a spirituality of "yes" energizes, validates and comforts. By comparison, negatives like restriction, redirection and disappointment can seem like lesser spirituality or even… Continue reading Spirituality When Life Says No
Author: velveteenrabbi
R. Rachel Barenblat has been blogging as the Velveteen Rabbi since 2002.
Seeing It All
Part of a yearlong series on resilience in Jewish spiritual life. I've heard it countless times, especially over the last few weeks: "Depending on where I look around me, I see either beauty or devastation, hope or despair." True that: it's all there, all at the same time, especially nowadays. Some would say that where… Continue reading Seeing It All
Home of the Brave?
This moment in national life, and this moment in the Jewish spiritual calendar, both ask deep and real bravery. What’s more, they impel us to ask ourselves and each other a few direct questions: Are we brave? Are we the “Home of the Brave”? What does bravery mean for us now? Francis Scott Key, whose… Continue reading Home of the Brave?
When resilience is just stubborn: the art of quitting
Part of a yearlong series on resilience in Jewish spiritual life. Ever feel like you're pushing a boulder up a hill and soon will reach the top if you just keep going – but the top never comes? Mythical Greek king Sisyphus was condemned to this futility, and philosopher Albert Camus saw in it a metaphor for all human… Continue reading When resilience is just stubborn: the art of quitting
Bitching Bites
Bitching is easy. Holy bitching is another matter. Easy bitching is what our Torah ancestors did after 39 years in the desert – and who could blame them? Having buried beloved leaders Miriam and Aaron, the people called Israel were miserable: 39 years on the move, in the wilderness, eating manna. It is human nature to… Continue reading Bitching Bites
The time God got it wrong – Korach
Part of a yearlong series on resilience in Jewish spiritual life. Watch enough cable or online "news," and you might sense a U.S. society more polarized than ever before by political party, class, race, ethnicity, geography and religion. Public disagreements speedily become disagreeable, and disputes fuel scorched-earth campaigns to destroy disputants. What are we to… Continue reading The time God got it wrong – Korach
The Soul of Waiting
"Time waits for no one,” quips the adage, but maybe that’s backward. Maybe the soul of healthy waiting is cultivating a healthy sense of timelessness that we don’t try to control. Easier said than done. One challenge of waiting is precisely that we wait inside time. The longer our wait, the more our impatience and… Continue reading The Soul of Waiting
Waiting to Exhale
Part of a yearlong series about resilience in Jewish spiritual life. "Waiting to Exhale." No, not the 1995 Whitney Houston movie hit. I mean life's occasional sense of waiting – waiting with anticipation, waiting with diminishing patience, maybe even Waiting for Godot. When we must wait, how can we wait with inner healthfulness, even resilience? We moderns… Continue reading Waiting to Exhale
What Counts? – A tribute to Israel
Part of a yearlong series about resilience in Jewish spiritual life. I just returned from two weeks in Israel, in the days preceding the 70th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. The country felt consumed by this momentous occasion – recounting Israel's history, counting Israel's blessings, and counting… Continue reading What Counts? – A tribute to Israel
There is no “I” in Team
Part of a yearlong series about resilience in Jewish spiritual life. Here's a true confession of a self-described "Resilience Rabbi" spending a year writing about resilience: sometimes I don't feel very resilient. Sometimes I feel tired, drained, even hopeless. I suspect we all have those moments when we don't seem to bounce back from adversity,… Continue reading There is no “I” in Team
“Say No to Non!” – Let’s Ban the Phrase “Non-Jew”
To all who care about the Jewish community and the Jewish future, let’s ban the phrase “non-Jew.” Let’s never again speak this phrase or even think it. People in spiritual life are too important to describe in negative terms. Like any broad-brush label, the phrase “non-Jew” evokes inclusion by implication (“Jew” is the in-group) and… Continue reading “Say No to Non!” – Let’s Ban the Phrase “Non-Jew”
See Different: Don’t look now, but Passover’s not over.
Actually, scratch that. Please look now – right now – and see this: the point of Passover isn’t the Seder. Yes, Passover’s symbols, stories, foods and traditions can be highlights of the year. For millions, that’s what a Seder is, and with good reason. Passover is a Jewish birth certificate – the story of Jewish identity birthed from exile,… Continue reading See Different: Don’t look now, but Passover’s not over.
Resilience After the Seder
Part of a yearlong series on resilience in Jewish spiritual life. This year's Passover seder is history. Cups were filled and drunk and filled and spilled and drunk and filled again. Matzah was broken, crunched and crumbled. Soup was slurped. Stories were told. Songs were sung. A marinade of elation, pride, afterglow, exhaustion and indigestion… Continue reading Resilience After the Seder
The Koan of Shrunken Silence
Part of a yearlong series about resilience in Jewish spiritual life. The teacher of my teachers, Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi z"l, recounted that one of his children asked him about waking and sleeping. The child asked, "If we can wake from sleeping, why can't we also wake from waking?" In essence, can we wake more? What might it… Continue reading The Koan of Shrunken Silence
Target the Heart
How should I respond to my congregants who express fear, helplessness, and hopelessness about school lockdowns and assault weapons in the hands of crazy people?” I asked this question after an “active shooter” school lockdown in my New York county. I directed my question to my 1,500 Facebook friends – not a scientific sample, but… Continue reading Target the Heart
Nevertheless, She Persisted: A Purim Tribute for Women’s History Month
Just in time for Purim comes this resource offered on the Bayit Builders' Blog: Nevertheless, She Persisted: A Purim Tribute for Women's History Month. This trope mash-up of Esther and the 2/7/2017 Congressional Record (“nevertheless she persisted” silencing of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren) commemorates Purim and Women’s History Month at a time when society especially… Continue reading Nevertheless, She Persisted: A Purim Tribute for Women’s History Month
Nu, What’s New?
What’s new? No, not the colloquial “What’s up?” but rather “What’s new in your life?” Like a Russian matryoshka doll, this question contains other questions that telescope toward a central core: “How well do I notice my life?” “How do I make new in my life?” “Can anything really be new?” “Why does any of this… Continue reading Nu, What’s New?
The Sapphire Path
Part of a yearlong series on resilience in Jewish spiritual life. Long before Frank Baum imagined Munchkins and "The Yellow Brick Road," Jews had a "Sapphire Path" that, according to Torah, Moses and 70 elders saw ascending skyward (Exodus 24:10). While mystics and rationalists might part ways about these kinds of visions, the hope of… Continue reading The Sapphire Path
Connecting to the Tree of Life
By Rabbi Rachel Barenblat and Rabbi David Markus Originally published as part of the Auburn Voices series at Auburn Seminary. Tu b’Shevat, the “New Year of the Trees,” is coming at the next full moon, the night of January 30. We honor Tu b’Shevat to renew our spirits and prepare ourselves, and the world, for spring’s… Continue reading Connecting to the Tree of Life
Take my advice
Part of a series on resilience in Jewish spiritual life. The older I get, the more willing I become to admit that I don't know it all and can't do it all. Life experience teaches all of us what the brilliant Albert Einstein recognized: "The more I learn, the more I realize how much I… Continue reading Take my advice
David Evan Markus 