Pretend you're designing and building a new state Capitol. Imagine in precise detail the stones, woodwork, glass, tools, glue, joints, wiring and metalwork you'd need: such immense architectural plans could fill books. Now imagine getting the materials – not with tax revenue or apportioning needs directly to people able to fulfill them, but simply by saying the… Continue reading Building the Trusting Heart
Author: velveteenrabbi
R. Rachel Barenblat has been blogging as the Velveteen Rabbi since 2002.
Seeing Bigger
Travel in your mind to the top of our atmosphere, where Earth’s envelope of life-giving oxygen and nitrogen blends into the cold vacuum of space. Looking down from that heady height, as astronauts have done since 1961, the Earth below seems borderless and pastoral, gently still except for flashes of lightning and polar aurorae dancing across the globe. This uplifted perspective on our planet… Continue reading Seeing Bigger
A Space for Spirit
Perspective is everything. How we see the world – our point of view – shapes how the world affects us and thus how we live. The opposite also is true: how we live shapes what we see. The two come together in a holy handshake, with profound implications for Jewish spirituality, what Jews believe and how we… Continue reading A Space for Spirit
From Sigh to Song: A Way Toward Freedom
Jews are a People of the Book; Jews also are a People of the Song. In fear, poverty, war and exile, song packed light and eased the way. This spiritual secret is encoded in Jewish spiritual DNA: we can sing our way through. Even for those of us who wouldn’t describe ourselves as singers, the ancient secret of song is ours to rediscover and… Continue reading From Sigh to Song: A Way Toward Freedom
What Have You Done For Me Lately?
It never fails. At first we feel gratitude for gifts and blessings, but memory fades and gratitude drains. We're not ingrates, but recall and attention are limited: life naturally gets in the way. Forgetfulness is the human condition: let's call it spiritual amnesia. For most of us living workaday lives, spirituality isn't what drives us… Continue reading What Have You Done For Me Lately?
Everything Old is New Again
It's that time again – retrospectives on the secular year now ending, Top 10 lists, New Years resolutions, new calendars, the Baby New Year myth become childhood cartoon, renewed diets and gym routines perhaps soon forgotten, the Rose Bowl parade, maybe a hangover or two. Among the social values of New Years is a sense of renewal… Continue reading Everything Old is New Again
Angels We Have Heard On High
“Merry Christmas,” says this pulpit rabbi and co-chair of the Jewish Renewal movement. Regardless of our theologies and beliefs, the message of Christmas is worthy for Jews to think deeply about – but we need to get clear about what we understand the real message of Christmas to be. Granted, Christmas can leave Jews feeling either “Bah Humbug” or “Amazing Grace”: both are popular Christmas… Continue reading Angels We Have Heard On High
Becoming the Light
"Hope springs eternal," wrote essayist Alexander Pope. This sentiment forms the spiritual core ofChanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, and (not coincidentally) also this week's Torah portion, Miketz. Hope, by its nature, transcends perceived reality however bleak. Hope is what remains when the night seems most dark, when the chips seem most down, when the deck seems most… Continue reading Becoming the Light
It’s Thanksgiving, But What if One Doesn’t Feel Thankful?
Happy Thanksgiving. Now, let’s get real: Some don’t feel thankful today. We might feel like the turkeys got us down. We might feel burdened by hosting, harried by travel, lonely for having nowhere to go, bothered for having to go somewhere we don’t want to go, or pre-triggered by a secular holiday season happier in advertising than anticipation or reality.… Continue reading It’s Thanksgiving, But What if One Doesn’t Feel Thankful?
Every Rock: The Art of Awe
Every Jewish house of worship echoes the iconic scene in this week’s Torah portion (Vayetze). Jacob takes a rock and places it under his head for a pillow. He dreams of a ladder rising from there to heaven, with angels ascending and descending along it. Jacob wakes with awe and calls the spot Beth El,… Continue reading Every Rock: The Art of Awe
Of Challah-ween, Havdalah-ween and Yaakov Lanterns
If you’re reading this post during October, it’ll soon be Halloween – that great Jewish holiday. Yes, you read that right. (Well, sort of.) In no obvious sense is Halloween a Jewish holiday. Historically, Halloween derives from Christianity’sAll Hallows’ Eve, traditionally a time of feasting and vespers before All Saints’ Day on November 1, which… Continue reading Of Challah-ween, Havdalah-ween and Yaakov Lanterns
False Starts and the Art of Renewal
Beginnings tend to be messy: ask anyone who's ever given birth, tilled the soil, sculpted, composed, or built something to last. By their nature, beginnings tend to begin unformed and void, at first dark and uncertain, then haltingly lurch toward something-ness. Each year, Jews recycle Torah and begin its reading anew. This week we… Continue reading False Starts and the Art of Renewal
The Spirituality of Just Hanging Out (Shemini Atzeret Edition)
Sunday night (October 4, 2015) begins Shemini Atzeret, the last festival in the summer/fall Jewish holiday cycle. For many moderns, Shemini Atzeret is obscure, confusing or irrelevant – but investing ourselves in this holiday can revitalize the spirit for the year ahead. Here’s how. * In 1993, alternative rock band Crash Test Dummies released its second… Continue reading The Spirituality of Just Hanging Out (Shemini Atzeret Edition)
Yom Kippur 2015 / 5776: “Who Would You Be if You Lost it All?”
G’mar chatimah tovah. For every worthy hope and every healing you seek this year, may it be sealed for good. I want to share a true story about David Gregory, former host of NBC’s Meet the Press, the television forum for national and world leaders. This story came to me in two parts. The first… Continue reading Yom Kippur 2015 / 5776: “Who Would You Be if You Lost it All?”
Rosh Hashanah 2015 / 5776 – Seeking the Face of God
Our theme for this year’s High Holy Day season is “Seeking,” drawn from Psalm 27, our musical anthem that’s a love song with God: You called to my heart: “Come seek My face / Come seek My grace.” For Your love, Source of all, I will seek. Whether or not we’d use the term, all… Continue reading Rosh Hashanah 2015 / 5776 – Seeking the Face of God
The divine dance of forgiveness
This weekend (September 4-5, 2015) traditionally brings the Selichot service of inner awareness and penitence in readiness for the High Holy Day journey of teshuvah (return, amends). There’s no more apt moment to spiritually reflect on the source of forgiveness. The thing is, Jewish thought is spiritually schizophrenic about the source of forgiveness. In 1711, an… Continue reading The divine dance of forgiveness
We have met the enemy
On September 10, 1813, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry led the U.S. Navy to victory in the pivotal Battle of Lake Erie, which turned the War of 1812 toward American advantage and ultimately preserved U.S. independence from the English crown. That day, Perry reportedly coined two historic phrases. One was “Don’t give up the ship” – now a timeless… Continue reading We have met the enemy
The Devil You Know
“Balaam and the Angel,” painting from Gustav Jaeger (1836). For all of Torah’s miracles large and small, the story of a talking donkey who sees an angel is perhaps Torah’s most magical and childlike narrative. In its words lurks a profound secret that touches (and challenges) the core of our adult sense of good and… Continue reading The Devil You Know
A String Around Your Finger
For all the spiritual riches of religious tradition, sometimes we forget our spiritual essence – the spark of divinity we associate with each soul, the inherent Oneness connecting all things, the heightened reality hiding in plain sight. Our penchant for spiritual amnesia is less a Jewish frailty than a human one: after all, to forget is human. Each world wisdom tradition, in… Continue reading A String Around Your Finger
Renewing Disruptive Innovation
In April, I represented ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal among #tenrabbis joining CLAL co-president Irwin Kula at the TriBeCa Disruptive Innovation Awards. In the Green Room backstage with me were titans of industry, technology, education, advocacy, media and the arts who’d made fundamental change in the world – the likes of Bill Magee (co-founder, Operation… Continue reading Renewing Disruptive Innovation
David Evan Markus 