Part of a yearlong series about resilience in Jewish spiritual life. When are you most likely to ask “why” about your life? Especially when life seems difficult or unfair, we ask “why” because we sense that understanding can help avoid pitfalls of meaninglessness. A world we (think we) can explain is a world that seems… Continue reading When (bad) things happen to (good) people
Author: velveteenrabbi
R. Rachel Barenblat has been blogging as the Velveteen Rabbi since 2002.
Don’t Just Sit There: Feel Something
Here’s a radical idea that I wish weren’t radical: if you consistently feel nothing in the Jewish community, it’s time to take notice and ask why. And a corollary: if you serve the Jewish community, a keystone goal should be to encourage authenticity, depth, and safety of emotional experience. True, Jewish civilization survived and thrived… Continue reading Don’t Just Sit There: Feel Something
Resilience when we would rather not remember
Part of a yearlong series on resilience in Jewish spiritual life. It's just a few weeks until Rosh Hashanah. The Jewish season of teshuvah (repentance, repair, return) is upon us. And of course, what we repent, repair and return (to) depends exquisitely on what we remember. Truth be told, there are some things I'd rather not remember. I'd… Continue reading Resilience when we would rather not remember
What We Remember in Our Feet
“What We Remember in Our Feet” Cragsmoor Stone Church August 19, 2018 Happy Sunday to you. And thank you – especially Deacon Jeff Slade – for inviting me to share in today’s service of worship and learning. Deacon Jeff and I met through the New York Theological Seminary. I’m delighted to be with you. Some… Continue reading What We Remember in Our Feet
The eye is in the hand of the beholder
Part of a yearlong series on resilience in Jewish spiritual life. If art and beauty are in the eye of the beholder, then what about spirituality and especially communal spirituality? And when we feel disconnected – as everyone sometimes does – then what? This week's Torah portion (Re'eh) invites us to see that seeing our eye… Continue reading The eye is in the hand of the beholder
Spirituality When Life Says No
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
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
David Evan Markus 