BIG NEWS I'm verklempt to join breathtakingly cool colleagues among this year's "36 to Watch" in Jewish life. I'm moved and awed by the group's collective contributions to smashing ceilings, visioning futures, reinventing institutions, transforming cultures, forging paths, healing brokenness and leading communities. Joining the likes of NY State Senator Anna M. Kaplan, NYC Council… Continue reading 36 to Watch
Author: velveteenrabbi
R. Rachel Barenblat has been blogging as the Velveteen Rabbi since 2002.
“I’ve Seen the Promised Land”
On this day in 1968, gunshots pierced a Memphis morning. Their shrieks echo still. That day’s assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King pushed tidal waves of grief, anger and fear across our country. Because Dr. King was larger than life, hate ended his life – – but not his dream. As an adept student of… Continue reading “I’ve Seen the Promised Land”
Running for Justice
Dear Friends – After 20 years serving in and around our justice system… and on winning campaigns from presidential to local, and for social justice causes from global to local… after serving for years as North America’s only full-time presiding judicial officer simultaneously holding a rabbinic pulpit… it's time for a change. I'M RUNNING FOR… Continue reading Running for Justice
What Would Thurgood Do?
Today I was privileged to join colleagues of the bar, bench, pulpit and social justice community to dedicate a monument to the life and legacy of Justice Thurgood Marshall. Especially in this era of faction and fissure, I was grateful that Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, Jews and Gentiles – truly a sea of… Continue reading What Would Thurgood Do?
Yom Kippur 2021: Our Forwarding Address
Gut yontif on this Yom Kippur day of transformation. This year’s High Holy Day themes of strength, resilience, courage and daring all flow into today, when we can lift our lives – perhaps in just an instant – if only we’ll take the leap. Last Yom Kippur, I quoted mysticism scholar Gershom Scholem, who called days like today “plastic” times… Continue reading Yom Kippur 2021: Our Forwarding Address
Rosh Hashanah 5782: Mustaches and Moral Injuries – Resilience in Divisive Times
Shanah tovah. I hope your 5782 is dawning bright and strong. Last night we introduced our theme of strength (gevurah) – wise structure, healthy boundaries and moral direction. Gevurah calibrates impulses, sees better worlds out of turmoil and chaos, and even can transform walls into springboards. As we saw in last night’s tribute to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, gevurah can power our reach… Continue reading Rosh Hashanah 5782: Mustaches and Moral Injuries – Resilience in Divisive Times
Stronger Together: Erev Rosh Hashanah 5782
Shanah tovah! Welcome to the High Holy Days 5782. May they bring sweet goodness and health for us, our loved ones and our world. All of us here tonight lived through 5781, a year like no other. We all lived it — pandemic, climate change, racial reckoning, economic and political spasms, technological shifts and more. We saw… Continue reading Stronger Together: Erev Rosh Hashanah 5782
Our Mourning Year – at Bayit
New from Bayit’s Liturgical Arts Working Group comes this collaborative compilation of liturgy, poetry and art for this Tisha b’Av. Here are poems, prayers, artwork, and readings for Tisha b’Av 2021, looking back on the last pandemic year as we sit with what’s broken and nurture the seeds of hope for repair. This offering is organized through… Continue reading Our Mourning Year – at Bayit
“Show Me Your Way:” the Trans Microcosm of Spiritual Allyship
“Andy” sent a spiritual autobiography of four pages, a shimmeringly honest reflection on Andy’s emotional and spiritual life; birth family and chosen family, loves and losses, belief and disbelief, hope and yearning. Its treatment of gender identity spanned 10 pivotal words: “I’m trans of [gender] experience and completed transition some years ago.” I sat in… Continue reading “Show Me Your Way:” the Trans Microcosm of Spiritual Allyship
The Lot of One Year: Liturgy, Poetry, and Art for Purim
New from Bayit’s Liturgical Arts Working Group comes a collection of poems, prayers, and artwork for this pandemic Purim. Here are meditations on (the) last Purim, and on our many-layered losses; poems on our world turning upside-down, on what our masks reveal, on grief and playfulness, on Esther and on Zeresh, on vengeance and its… Continue reading The Lot of One Year: Liturgy, Poetry, and Art for Purim
Connections: New Liturgy for Tu BiShvat
An interdisciplinary and pluralist collection of new work for Tu BiShvat, the New Year of the Trees: “TU biShvat is an invitation to focus on the natural world surrounding us–and at the same time, it makes us aware of our connectedness to each other, to the flow of time and stories, to the flow of cyclical renewal,… Continue reading Connections: New Liturgy for Tu BiShvat
Great Miracles Happen Here
This new collaborative offering from Bayit’s liturgical arts working group comes to bring light in dark times. Here you’ll find new liturgy (including an “Al HaNisim” looking back on the miracles we haven’t yet lived into being, and a “Hanerot Hallalu” for this pandemic year), evocative poetry (on finding light without a chanukiyah, on kindling lights alone,… Continue reading Great Miracles Happen Here
For National Havdalah of Reconciliation
For video of this teaching, see the videos page. "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." If something in these familiar words felt missing, it's because Congress amended this original version of the… Continue reading For National Havdalah of Reconciliation
This Plastic Hour: Love’s Forward Memory We Need Now
Yom Kippur Morning 5781 Gut yontif on this Yom Kippur of loving connection, courage, vulnerability and forgiveness. These "love" themes of our High Holy Day journey all flow into this poignant day when Jewish wisdom urges that we can change our lives in just a day if we'll take that inner loving leap. Modern mysticism… Continue reading This Plastic Hour: Love’s Forward Memory We Need Now
The Courage to Emerge
Rosh Hashanah Morning 1 | Temple Beth-El of City Island. Shanah tovah. May 5781 dawn bright for you and your beloveds. Last night we introduced our High Holy Day theme of love to power our journey of teshuvah – returning to our best selves, each other and a world urgently needing repair. We explored how love's… Continue reading The Courage to Emerge
The Kind of Love We Need
Erev Rosh Hashanah 5781 | Temple Beth-El of City Island Shanah tovah. Welcome to Jewish spiritual year 5781 – may it bring sweet goodness and health for all of us and our loved ones. Every Rosh Hashanah, Jews worldwide say that the new year is a year like no other, a creation unique in history,… Continue reading The Kind of Love We Need
Tomorrow’s Giants On Our Shoulders
A D’var Torah for Parashat Nitzavim-Vayeilekh We stand on the shoulders of giants. Much that we have, much that we are becoming, are harvests of trees our ancestors planted. We inherit their shalshelet – their spiritual and practical causation both wise and unwise, healthy and not – along with what they received from their ancestry. Legacy courses… Continue reading Tomorrow’s Giants On Our Shoulders
Into and Through Tisha b’Av: Our Fragile Alchemy of “Why”
There’s gotta be a reason. What’s happening now must be a reaction to something that came before. Someone must be responsible: maybe me, maybe you, maybe all of us. Any God that is good and fair must have some purpose in all this – right? We sense this yearning for “why” just under the surface. After all,… Continue reading Into and Through Tisha b’Av: Our Fragile Alchemy of “Why”
The Mishkan’s Next Digital (R)Evolution
Reb Zalman Memorial Shabbaton 2020 June 13, 2020 • 21 Sivan 5780 מה נורא המקום הזה How awesome is this body! How awesome is this place! How awesome is this journey Through time and space. (Chant by Rav Kohenet Taya Mâ Shere.) Shabbat shalom to all of us together במקום נורא הזה / in this awesome… Continue reading The Mishkan’s Next Digital (R)Evolution
Statement of Prayer and Solidarity: Black Lives Matter
Statement of Prayer and Solidarity Rabbi David Evan Markus Temple Beth El of City Island June 6, 2020 Dear friends, let us pray. Holy One of Blessing: Today is the Jewish Sabbath, a day of rest to restore our souls – our neshamot, from the Hebrew word for breath. But such a Sabbath rest is… Continue reading Statement of Prayer and Solidarity: Black Lives Matter
David Evan Markus 