Part of a yearlong series on resilience in Jewish spiritual life. Today's shrill era in which some vocally try to silence others isn't new. The only difference is that more of us – at long last – are calling it what it is. It takes resilience to "persist" against the constant drumbeat of silencing and gaslighting, and… Continue reading Nevertheless, She Persisted
Author: velveteenrabbi
R. Rachel Barenblat has been blogging as the Velveteen Rabbi since 2002.
A Century Since Balfour: Israel and the Trap of Over-Simplifying
It's a momentous anniversary for Israel and world Jewry. This week marks 100 years since the Balfour Declaration (November 2, 1917) conveyed the British government's support for a Jewish homeland in Mideast territory under British control after World War I. This year also marks 70 years since the State of Israel's founding on May 14, 1948. We… Continue reading A Century Since Balfour: Israel and the Trap of Over-Simplifying
The Rush of Resilience: Loving More Than Yourself
Part of a yearlong series on resilience in spiritual life. Meet a 99-year-old gentleman who yesterday circumcised himself and today runs a fever. Age and Infirmity aside, he runs to greet surprise guests at his door, then rushes to help his wife feed them. Missing an ingredient in the kitchen, he keeps running – first… Continue reading The Rush of Resilience: Loving More Than Yourself
It’s Raining, It’s Pouring – the Resilience of Noach
Part of a year-long series about resilience in Jewish life. Picture it. The world as you know it will end. You have time to prepare yourself but must bear the derision of disbelievers. When massive change comes, you are kept physically safe amidst tumult but suffer the darkness. Then you must rebuild in a world… Continue reading It’s Raining, It’s Pouring – the Resilience of Noach
Resilience . . . Cain after Abel
Our High Holy Day theme of "resilience" was so impactful that we're dedicating this new year of Torah blogs to it. How does each weekly Torah portion reflect Judaism's enduring resilience and invite us to seek and find resilience in our own lives? Let's start from the very Beginning. From the start, nature has been… Continue reading Resilience . . . Cain after Abel
Prayer after the shooting
I loved and grieved from the day you claimed your free will, Knowing that you too would open into infinite love and grief, Knowing how your hearts would bloom with gratitude and hope With every child’s every first, and lament every child’s every last, As I do and always will with My children’s every first… Continue reading Prayer after the shooting
Exhaling After the Holidays
Like Whitney Houston’s 1995 movie hit about four friends living through different phases of love and life, many in post-Yom Kippur life are experiencing some version of Waiting to Exhale. Some exhale with relief that the High Holy Days are over. (Clergy, I’m looking at you.) Others exhale with regret that their heady High Holy Day… Continue reading Exhaling After the Holidays
Getting to Yes
Gmar chatimah tovah. May you be sealed in the Book of Life for joy, creativity, belonging and love – for the shalom (peace) and shleimut (wholeness) you need most. Fittingly for Yom Kippur, I have a confession. Judaism's "Book of Life" metaphor – "On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed" – once drove me from… Continue reading Getting to Yes
Paying up
"I beg of you: do not walk by without pausing to attend to this rather ridiculous performance – It could mean something; it could mean everything; It could mean: You must change your life." These words, adapted for today's Haftarah, are from the poem "Invitation," by Mary Oliver. She calls us to pay attention, even… Continue reading Paying up
Renewing our holy wholeness
Shanah tovah. Welcome to 5778 and to renewing our holy journey together as we "return to the land of our souls." For 3,000 years, our people have craved shalom – peace within, peace between, peace for all. Judaism is about shalom – seeking shalom and making shalom. Rosh Hashanah renews this call, to repair what's… Continue reading Renewing our holy wholeness
The great rebalance of heaven and earth
Here they come again – those great, holy wondrous Days of Awe. Something about the 10 days from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur calls us back to ourselves – back to community, back to our souls, back to parts of ourselves that maybe we forgot (or we'd rather forget). Maybe it's changing light of the… Continue reading The great rebalance of heaven and earth
The Way We Were – Anniversaries, September 11, and Standing Together Again
Today is the 16th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. For awhile, 9/11 changed much about how we see ourselves, each other and the world. For many, these changes are permanent – in lives lost, innocence shattered, industries changed, and political ripples around the globe. For awhile, we stood together as a… Continue reading The Way We Were – Anniversaries, September 11, and Standing Together Again
The Appetite for Hate
These weeks leading to Rosh Hashanah – especially amidst the tumult of the world – call us to seek and find the good in each other, and make good on our own call to be our best selves. Easier said than done. The tumult of the world dredges up sediment of fear, anxiety, anger, powerlessness… Continue reading The Appetite for Hate
Judaism’s Three Rs for the 21st Century
Decades of educators used the Three Rs as a teaching slogan. Think what we may of “reading, writing and arithmetic,” the Three Rs are a catchy enough line that most of us recognize it. The environmental movement has its own Three Rs (“reduce, reuse, recycle”), as does the cognitive psychology of forming good habits (“reminder, routine, reward”).… Continue reading Judaism’s Three Rs for the 21st Century
The Foundation of Our Lives
Even in these hazy lazy days of summer, our days are full of doings – of many kinds and for many reasons. Why do we do what we do? Answers vary with circumstance: hopes of getting ahead, fears of falling behind, family commitments, laws, goals, traditions, love, pain and more. This week's Torah portion (Eikev)… Continue reading The Foundation of Our Lives
How to take a real vacation
It's summer, and 58% of Americans are likely to take vacations – some by plane, most by car. Vacations have countless motivations: visit friends or family, change scenery, change pace, have fun, relax, seek adventure, (re)kindle romance, find ourselves or get away from it all. Sometimes vacations work their magic: we return refreshed – at… Continue reading How to take a real vacation
Our Sacred Cows
We all have "sacred cows" – ideas, habits and commitments seemingly so core to who we are that we might hold them nearly inviolate. Often they seem like the bedrock of our lives – how we know ourselves, how we want others to know us, how we shape our identity, and how we arrange our… Continue reading Our Sacred Cows
In Cloud’s Shadow: Spirituality and Darkness
Is it just me, or lately do there seem to be more clouds of confusion and despair obscuring hearts, minds, communities and public discourse? As I write these words, even my East Coast home is shrouded in a bizarre meteorological June gloom more reminiscent of coastal California. Amidst literal and metaphorical cloudy skies, what should… Continue reading In Cloud’s Shadow: Spirituality and Darkness
The reason for patience
If patience is a virtue, then I tend not to feel especially virtuous. Often I want (now) to fix (now) what's wrong in the world (now) – and rush hour traffic can seem like ironically named torture. From feeding our hunger to speaking our minds, it's a very human impulse to indulge each arising desire,… Continue reading The reason for patience
What Judge Abdus-Salaam’s Death Teaches Us About Assumptions
On April 12, 2017, the New York Police Department found Sheila Abdus-Salaam, Associate Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, floating dead in the Hudson River. She was eulogized on May 26, 2017, as an exemplary jurist of intelligence and compassion, and a trailblazer – the first African American woman to serve on New… Continue reading What Judge Abdus-Salaam’s Death Teaches Us About Assumptions
David Evan Markus 