After these weeks of introspection, reflection and forgiveness, it’s finally time to set yourself free. We’ve arrived at our final destination, Simchat Torah. It’s a day of joy and celebration that we reached this moment.  Dance around your living room with something or someone you hold dear. If you happen to have a Torah scroll handy, dance with it. Whatever you cherish, take it on at least seven laps around your coffee table with a smile on your face. You made...

Prayer for Rain in the Merit of the Matriarchs By Rabbi Jill Hammer Sukkot is a time of fullness and generosity, but also a time to pray for the coming season. Shemini Atzeret, the festival when we pray for rain, is an expression of our need for water, which in the Jewish tradition symbolizes life, renewal, and deliverance. The Geshem (Rain) Prayer speaks of five patriarchs. In that spirit, I have included five verses, for Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah, and...

And G!d says: "And when you have made the repairs, when you have lessened the distance between yourself and others, when you have forgiven yourself, when you have built your fort and welcomed your community into it for a whole week - then you can throw a party. A big one, with singing and dancing. And you can say it's because you finished reading the Torah because that's convenient but also you DID IT. You did so much healing. You did...

“Rejoicing in the Torah” doesn’t require us to find joy in every verse.     It doesn’t mean that we concur with every choice made by the people in it. It doesn’t demand that we defend the indefensible or excuse the inexcusable.     It doesn’t imply that we should be happy about passages that break our hearts. Rejoicing in the Torah is found in the freedom to study it when, where, and with whom we wish.     We experience happiness with it when we wrestle...

We Dance Around The Shul By Trisha Arlin Our Torah is old. The blue velvet cover And the silver plate that hangs over the velvet Are both covered in names Of donors long gone, And their honored loved ones, gone even longer. These names mean nothing to us: We ignore them On Shabbat When we dance around the shul. On Selichot we put aside the old velvet And dressed our Torah in fresh white covers,   only a year old, Donated by...

Eht/Aht (את)  By Rachel Kann  For Ketzirah Lesser’s Eht/Aht (את): a Netivot Wisdom Oracle Card Deck   - If the word is made fresh, then let every alleged blemish be blessed, each individually kissed  like the exquisite mezuzah it is.  - There is a doorway  that all of creation  thresholds its way through  on its way to  the eternal-unfolding-already-was.  - Oh, All-That-Is/Infinite,  who whispered this lintel  into beginning; into becoming, - who bears witness  to this living-thing-ness, - who is this lintel,...

High Holidays in Five Senses  What do the High Holidays smell like?  They smell of freshly-baked sweet challah, the vanilla-y pages of an old book, your grandfather’s aftershave, the tang of the etrog and the perfume of lulav branches. What do the High Holidays feel like?   They feel like fists beating on chests, shifting your tush on a wooden pew in an unairconditioned sanctuary, running your fingers through the fringes of a tallit, dropping crumbs into the water as you cast...

For centuries, Sephardi Jewish families have gathered to celebrate a special Rosh Hashanah ceremony with a plate or meal of symbolic foods. Each food is eaten after requesting a specific kind of Divine blessing that sounds like the name of that food in Hebrew.  Before eating dates ( tamar ): May it be your will, God, that hatred will end. ( Tamar resembles the word for end, yitamu. ) Before eating pomegranate: May we be as full of mitzvot as the...