What I’m Learning From My Torah Project
This post was made to my personal Facebook page, but I decided to add it to my blog as part of my own record of progress. On January 1, 2016, I started a year-long project of taking pictures out my back door.
Category: Thoughts
Thoughts On Failed Societies And Hope
A great calm settled itself on me this week after weeks of feeling completely overwhelmed by events, frantically trying to figure out what I can do to stop the flood, what I can do to stop the world from dissolving around me.
Reclaiming The Burning Bush
This post ended up being lengthy because it’s actually two in one. A podcast I viewed as I was writing helped me look at my topic through a different lens, and I started to write a note…which turned into a post of
Torah Ecology: Beshallach 2017 (Ex. 13:17 – 17:16)
INTRODUCTION The first three chapters of Genesis tell us the entire story of the Torah. As one of my teachers used to say about Jewish ritual, it’s the “microcosm of the macrocosm.” If I am actually able to work through a year
Torah Ecology: Va-era & Bo 2017 (Ex 10:1-13:16)
INTRODUCTION Today I begin a new project of looking at the weekly Torah portions, searching for insights on food, “animal rights,” agriculture and ecology. Immediately a difficulty presented itself. My approach to the text doesn’t always fit neatly with the portions. This week,
My Statement of Faith During National Tragedy
I believe there is a creative energy behind and in creation. That energy created the world and suffuses it with wisdom and beauty. I also believe there is a destructive energy in creation. I see this in the paradox that is the
Journaling and Journeying: Pro-life and Pro-Choice
JOURNALING When I woke this morning, it was sunny for the first time in weeks. I believe everything is interconnected, interdependent, so I took the sunshine as a signal that my mental and spiritual condition would reshape itself today, and I shouldn’t stand
Wrapping Up The Summer CSA Harvest
I haven’t been writing much these last weeks since the election…I was a little down but am back now, reenergized. I’m catching up past projects and forging new ones, including several recipes to go with our CSA boxes each week in the
Election 2016: Keeping the Faith
One thing that all major religions have in common is a powerful message of hope. Judaism expresses its hopeful message in a variety of ways, in its sacred texts, its prayers and liturgies, its mandated ethical activity and its rituals. Ritual is
Naming the animals
I never post disturbing pictures of animals, on principle. That’s why I passed up sharing a post from Mercy for Animals on Facebook this morning even though it moved me deeply. I changed my mind later and went back to find the post