Recent Posts

  • pile of gold bricks
    Luxury and Sin: A dictionary path
    The less noted definition of “chet” [sin] is “living in luxury” or “well-dressed, polished, cleansed.”
  • And So?
    For nearly 3000 years, we’ve been warned that there is blood on our hands and work to be done. And so?
  • Vision, Blood, and Learning
    Three readings from the compressed period of Shabbat and Tisha B’av call us to….
  • Rick Danko and Joni Mitchell play guitar on stage at The Last Waltz 1976
    Footnote to “Setting Out”
    another illustration of how music and gender operated in 1976ish
  • on the Last Waltz stage, still from 1978 Doc: L-R: Dr. John, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Rick Danko, and Robbie Robertson
    Setting Out
    Leaving one stage to reach another, part of parashat Masei, is illustrated by two concerts featuring Joni Mitchell.
  • Recognition and Force
    thoughts on force and how it works in commerce and in the subset of acquisition in the ancient world known as marriage or betrothal
  • Remembering Emanuel 9 and…
    Remembering Emanuel9 and so many more.
  • Gemara on THUG-LIFE
    In Talmud studies at Svara: a traditionally radical yeshiva, as at houses of Jewish text study for 1500 years or more, students are asked to recite what is written from memory. At Svara, students are celebrated for giving voice to and “owning” a recitation of a few words, the whole long passage the class has … Continue reading Gemara on THUG-LIFE
  • Same Season, Same Pain
    Seeking new perspective on current, hyper-local grief, I’ve been studying mid-20th Century words from a Chicago Hebrew poet.
  • Aaron and Moses, Thurgood and Sam
    A passage from Shemot appears in Marshall (2017) and sheds light on two sibling-partnerships, one biblical and one historical.
  • Jewish Mourning and Pets
    Resources on pets and mourning.
  • DS9 for Bava Metzia 58b
    Bava Metzia 58b with Deep Space Nine and related commentary with thanks to SVARA’s Mixed-Level Beit Midrash.
  • Teraphim and Elohim, Calvin & Hobbes
    Maybe, the switch of vocabulary indicates that Rachel relates to the teraphim differently than her (male) kin folk
  • Sources, Paths, Prayers and More Notes in the Weekly Portion
    New landing page for sources on the weekly portion.
  • “One of Me” and Genesis 2
    Can we serve as ezer k’negdo [help-meet] for one another? Might Elton John and Lil Nas X be an example of this?
  • Singing and Praying about Enemies
    Musical context is shifting my perspective on “enemies” and “wicked ones” in the psalms.
  • Miriam, Amalek, Memory, and Mouths
    How much do we lose, and what do we gain, when we forget to remember why we chose to remember or forget? What must remembered with our mouths and with our hearts?
  • Remedy of the Bima?
    What is our responsibility, individually and collectively, for what is taught — or not — in our synagogues about reparations?
  • Or Olam: the light ahead and within
    Seeking pieces of liturgy and other resources for uplift, as we try to move from the depths of Av to the new year, “Eternal Light”….
  • Hallelu Avdei Adonai
    A captioned/subtitled video of “Hallelu Avdei Adonai,” from Kaplan & Ziegler’s “Tuning the Soul.”

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