The post Letter from Tel Aviv first appeared on Ritualwell.

One of our members said so simply, “I’m not ready.”

Those three words conveyed so much.

“I’m not ready….”

I’m still hurting.

I’m still angry.

If I forgive, it feels like I’m betraying myself.

I want justice.

What if I forgive them and then they do it again?  That disappointment would be too much to bear.

Judaism has much to say about our obligation to forgive someone who comes to us, asks for forgiveness, and is working on behavioral changes.  And of course, we are also obligated to ask for forgiveness when we have missed the mark.

But interestingly, there is way less written on forgiving when the other person has not asked to be forgiven.  I think of so many examples: My brother will never be able to recognize the impact of what he did, or my best friend died and I’m still really angry, or my step-mom has mental health struggles and will never ask me for forgiveness.

What then?

It feels so different to have someone truly acknowledge the ways they fell short, the harm they caused. But in cases where that will never happen, what do we do?

The Jewish middah, or virtue, of hassidut (lovingkindness), encourages forgiving someone who has not asked for it.  Middat hassidut is a voluntary act of lovingkindness that goes beyond the minimum requirements of Jewish law.

One example is the bedtime Shema where we recite the words, “I hereby forgive anyone who has angered me, or sinned against me, either physically or financially… whether accidentally or intentionally, by speech or by deed, by thought or by speculation, in this incarnation or in any other.  May no one be punished on my account.”

These words are a spiritual cleansing at the end of the day, covering our bases for any grudges we hold.

But how do we say these words and mean them in our kishkes, our depths?

I can logically understand why someone acted harmfully, and even feel compassion for their background or history that might have caused them to behave a certain way.  But there are times my emotions are not fully there.   There is a difference between understanding someone’s behavior intellectually, versus truly forgiving. If I say, “I hereby forgive…” I want to feel it fully–without a part of me still holding onto resentment.

Maybe what I’m noticing in the bedtime Shema example is the difference between forgiving and letting go.  This discernment is subtle.  Perhaps forgiveness is the decision to not continue to punish the transgressor.  And letting go involves healing and transformation that this is not going to have a hold on my life anymore.  Letting go may be more about freeing ourselves more than the other person

These nuances are more of a Venn diagram than distinct categories.  There are layers.  We can choose to let go without ever forgiving another person.  For instance, “What my boss did was not ok, and I don’t forgive them, but I have released any bitterness or grudges and my mind and heart feel clear, without malice.”

Inversely, we can forgive and still hold onto all our anger, or pain and disappointment.

“I know my grandma acted this way because of her mental health struggles.  I forgive the acts she committed, I know she would never intentionally cause me harm.  But the impact of her actions penetrate the stories I tell myself, I blame her for my failed relationships.  She infiltrates how I see my life.”

***

“I’m not ready.”

And yet…I don’t want this resentment to weigh on me. I don’t want to keep ruminating on the hurt, or for it to loom so large in my story.  I see how I am actually punishing myself, because I can’t punish the offender.

***

So…how do we change?  How do we let go of old hurts?

For me, there are two pieces.  The first is grief.  Grief for what we didn’t receive. Grief for the ways we weren’t seen. Grief for what was lost. I don’t think that we can get to a place of true forgiveness without allowing ourselves to grieve. We mourn the hope that the past could have been different.  We feel the depth of what we didn’t receive–what we so needed, or deserved.

I believe that lasting forgiveness and letting go asks us to be with ourselves through the grief in a way that we didn’t receive when the wrong was committed.  There is a lot of healing in actively witnessing our own grief in a way we never felt in the past.

We are giving ourselves what we so desperately wanted someone else to offer.  We reclaim our agency. Compassionately, gently.

Deep presence with our own grief softens us.  It opens space to accept the other for who and what they actually are.  This begins to free us.

***

Deep forgiveness doesn’t happen overnight, although gosh, wouldn’t that be nice??! 

Rabbi Jessica K. Marshall leads a heart-centered spiritual community called Sacred Journey, offers spiritually inclusive rituals and retreats, facilitates pre-marital and newlywed spiritual programs, and offers 1-on-1 spiritual guidance.

Guiding folks via deeper connection to their own rich soul-wisdom, she helps nurture lives of meaning and joy!

Find out about her upcoming retreats and virtual gatherings at: rabbijessicamarshall.com.  Instagram: @rabbijkm

The post The Path to Forgiveness first appeared on Ritualwell.

Two days after my mother died, the grief is immobilizing in its formlessness.  My brothers, my Dad and I are too alone with it, unprotected. It seems clear that we will  need some kind of gathering, some structure for our mourning.  But in my secular leftwing family, my father doesn’t feel a connection to shivah, to Kaddish, and he and my brothers won’t abide by God-language.  Over the years I’ve been learning,  falteringly, to translate some of this language internally so as to partake in some of the Judaic rituals and practices, which I find rich in meaning without needing to disavow my secular heritage.  And now the Jewish rituals of mourning seem like they will help my family through this time, foreign as they may seem to us at first.  I put out a call to several rabbi friends – do you know someone here in New York City who might be able to help  to create some kind of  shivah and rituals of mourning that could work for this family? 

***

Michael Posnick’s name comes through a mutual friend. Michael and I have met a couple of times over the years through work in theater.  He is not a rabbi – that would disqualify him, for Dad.  But he’s a learned Jew.  And on the phone with him, I can tell immediately, a mensch. I ask him what his parents did for a living.  My father was a grocer, my mom a homemaker.  What is your relationship with shivah?  My wife died 18 months ago, and I led shivah there in our apartment.   

This Michael Posnick, I tell Dad, he comes from a working-class family.  Not a rabbi, but when he lost his wife recently, he led the shivah.  Michael sounds like a good man,  says Dad.  Let’s meet with him.  Michael comes over to the apartment, connects with Dad straightaway. They talk about losing their wives. Dad tells Michael his misgivings about rabbis, about Judaism (though there’s some yearning mixed in there, as I’ve detected over the years).  Michael looks around the living room, the art on the walls, the shelves lined with books and CDs.  What is the music Wendy loved, who are the writers she looked to? Who were her parents? We plan for a gathering with Yiddish and secular readings, with Pete Seeger’s songs.  A time for a small group of their oldest remaining friends to remember Mom together with us. Will you want to say Kaddish? Michael asks. Dad stiffens a bit, unfamiliar, suspicious.  I don’t know about that. There are secular interpretations of the Kaddish, I offer.  Mom was a peace activist, bringing us as children along to marches and to moratoriums in Washington DC to stop the war in Vietnam.  Those were some of our closest times as a family. Here’s a Kaddish interpretation that is about building peace in the world: 

Let us praise the glory of life.  Let us make life sacred with love and respect. Let us celebrate life. Let us work to create peace here on earth for all peoples. Let us find comfort in each other. And let us say, Amen.

Michael adds – Kaddish is for the living, Nat. But of course it’s up to you. 

Later that day with Dad and my brothers, planning for the gathering, we are all comforted that people will be coming over to the house.  Dad, I ask, what about Kaddish? I don’t think so, he says.  I don’t understand the language, it’s not….and then he pauses, looks me in the eyes,  and says – but I won’t stop anyone who wants to say it. I would stand with you.

At the shivah, the group – many in their 90s, some recently widowed themselves –  share their stories about Mom.  In their presence, we feel the mourning as a collective process. Still, I am not ready to have Mom be in the past only; I cannot say a word. I appreciate shivah’s understanding that the mourners do not entertain or host, nor even necessarily be inquired of as to their emotional state. Mourners should just be held in the space and allowed to be shattered.  The group sings “Turn, Turn, Turn”. I listen, am not ready to sing.  We stand together and we do recite the Kaddish. 

***

The next week is Sukkot. For the first time since Mom was suddenly hospitalized a month ago with a diagnosis of acute leukemia, I go back to Philadelphia to be with Sara and Zevi, my partner and our daughter. In our Sukkah with some friends, now at the end of the shivah week, I have a desire to shake the Lulav and Etrog in the six directions – not a practice I have done before. And to somehow connect this practice to the mourning. As I tentatively enact the ancient movements, my mind comes alive with images.  I remember some of Mom’s connections to the directions – to the North, as I start to shake, Goldens Bridge, the cooperative leftwing Jewish village where we grew up in our summers, and where she connected so deeply to the land and to communal child raising. Facing East, I acknowledge Olshan, the shtetl where her mother’s family had lived for generations.  I’m less sure as I shake to the South.  Later, memories come to me of how much Mom and Dad loved experiencing the teeming life of the Galapagos, once we were all grown and out of the house. To the West, her dear cousin Roz, California where we’d all visited our cousins many times.  Upwards, the question forms, where is Mom’s soul?  And the winds of the early autumn blow through the thatchy walls and schakh of magnolia and mulberry branches of the Sukkah’s roof, speaking of cycles, of  loss, of change.  When I shake the wand of willow, palm, myrtle down toward myself, I am humbled to feel that this body, this heart and mind,  is one of the places where my Mom still is.  I came to life and grew inside her body, and now in death perhaps she still lives somewhere in mine.  How do I make the space in here for her to continue to dwell?  

On the train back to New York to take care of Dad, I wonder how to deal with the room where Mom breathed her last breaths, the memory of her body there in the hours after, the four of us weeping and in shock.  Her death still hangs heavily in the air when I’m in there to take care of household details. Burn sage, perhaps, wave smoke through the space and out into the open air, as we say Kaddish again?  Comes a quick internal rebuke: ‘this is appropriating native ritual’.  I mention the notion of burning sage to a friend whose ancestors are from Japan and who works as a community organizer in South Philadelphia’s neighborhood of immigrants from Laos, Vietnam, Korea, South Asia.  Of course, she replies – there’s always herbs and smoke in our homes when someone dies. 

For the next three weeks of the shloshim, the idea of the sage and Kaddish seems comforting.  The hospital bed has long been cleared out, but we can’t bring ourselves to be in the room.  My brothers also feel some need to somehow transition the space.  Maybe when our cousin Paula is here – Roz’s daughter – and husband David, coming in from California for the memorial service. Maybe when they are with us we can recite the Kaddish and light the sage smudge-stick I’ve purchased. I suggest this to Dad.  Fine, he responds, we’ll say Kaddish in there. But no sage, no smoke.  Understood, Pop.  Too much. 

***

We gather in the apartment with our cousins the night before the memorial. Paula is our cousin who knew my grandparents best, who had the first 10 years of her life with the extended mispucha in Brooklyn. After her own parents moved Paula and her brothers to California in 1956, three years before I was born, Paula never got over the loss of her dozens of aunts and uncles and cousins, the spirited family seders in my grandparents’ basement, the Yiddish singing, her big cousin Wendy, the whole immigrant cultural world that could not be further emigrated with them out west.  An extended family I never knew, though I somehow felt the huge absence I was born into. I observe Paula standing quietly in the kitchen, looking around at the cabinets and the tchachkes on the shelves. I’m feeling Wendy in this space, she says.  So familiar.  I remember those, she points at the tiles painted with scenes of a Yemenite Jewish family carrying bundles of firewood and vegetables that my grandparents brought back from Israel in the early 1950s.  Later I find Paula gazing up at the bookshelf in the living room, reading title after title on the spines of the books.

After dinner we gather in the room and recite Kaddish. It’s awkward, not quite the clearing I had hoped for. 

But later in the evening, I overhear Paula in the room where Mom died,  on the phone. 

…Treyst mayn folk, es darf dee treyst;

shtarkt dos harts, makht fest dem gayst…

Be consoled, be consoled, my people;

Take comfort from your grief. Make strong your hearts…

She is practicing the pronunciation of the Yiddish poem she’ll be reading at the memorial service.  Paula finds herself newly the matriarch of the family, with Roz’s recent death and now my Mom’s. Though not fluent, at the memorial tomorrow she will be the person there closest to Yiddish, a language my mother loved.  Paula is working to get the sounds right.  On speaker-phone coaching her is Hershl Hartman, at 92 a prominent leader of secular Yiddish culture and ritual, who has generously given us resources and texts for the service.  And so our ancestral language is being spoken in the room where Mom died. The Yiddish is its own smoke of offering, seeming  as a pathway for Mom’s soul to connect with her parents, my grandparents, the ancestors.  If this all seems to veer toward a supernatural I don’t usually delve in, I am not concerned. I’m getting it in my kishkes – the feel of the words in the air, Paula’s presence, Hershl’s support.

Later, I’m sitting in the room by myself for a moment, organizing some family photos. My younger brother Steve enters.  Before it became the office where Mom saw her therapy clients in her last decades, this was our shared bedroom for 15 years as boys, a space of play and wrestling, a refuge for us of closeness, the Empire State Building our nightlight just a few blocks away.  As we talk through some details about tomorrow’s reception after the memorial service, Steve asks me if I’m going to speak at the service.  I’m going to try, I tell him. You?  I wrote something, but I won’t be able to say it.  Why not, I ask.  I don’t want to break down in front of everyone. He begins to cry. I pull a chair closer, put a hand on his leg.  After a moment of weeping he takes out his phone.  Can I read it to you?  A beautiful story about him and Mom, intimate, elegant, aching.  More tears, both of us. Who knows, I tell him, maybe you’ll decide to speak, even at the last minute would be fine.  

***

At the memorial service the next day, Paula begins her brief eulogy by telling of her own parents. When Roz began to go into labor at their apartment on the Lower East Side, she and Milt got straight on the subway to my grandparents’ home in Brooklyn. It was Grandpa William who delivered Paula.  She continues –  and when I  became a mother, I would bring my  babies to Wendy and Nat’s house. And in the next generation, my children brought their babies there too.  

Then she speaks the poem she’d practiced, by Yitskhok Leybish Peretz. 

• Translation, Hershl Hartman

Peretz, who my Grandma Sarah had commended to us of the next generations in an essay we found amidst a folio of her writings about Yiddish poets and playwrights, secretly published under pseudonyms, discovered  20 years after her death high in a closet in our apartment. Among the Yiddish writers of his generation, Grandma wrote, Peretz was “the greatest and most enduring” in his deep love and respect for the poor Jews of the Pale.  She describes several of his stories in which Hasidic rabbis (turns out Grandma Sarah’s own grandfather was one, the Gedrewitzer rebbe) preferred the tumult of daily Jewish life and struggle to a formalistic and elitist orthodoxy. Peretz foresaw a time in which secular Jewish writers, artists and educators would inspire and lead the Jewish people. I discover in Peretz, then, a companion in trespassing between the secular and religious worlds. 

There is comfort in hearing Paula speak the Yiddish words.  And she closes – “and Wendy’s soul is gathered to her ancestors now”.  That phrase brings tears;  it is becoming understandable.

***

Dad has dreams, he tells us, where Mom comes to him, though she hasn’t yet spoken to him in them. Maybe there is some way I can keep opening my mind, Dad wonders, that will allow her to come to me more, to talk with me.  

In the weeks after Mom died, I found myself going again and again to the Hudson River. I feel the unspoken, ordinary closeness of having been alive there next to her and us looking out at the water.  And there’s the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, and the New York Harbor becomes a place where I remember her and our ancestors together.  

I don’t have a synagogue community or prayer practice for saying Kaddish with a minyan.  I do have a network of close comrades from all backgrounds who understand that crying and moving emotion out through the body and the mind is essential to recovering from loss, and for living with solidarity and purpose. With them I cry my way through the days, saying goodbye, remembering Mom and our relationship back to when I was a small boy. 

Mom did not have the chance to mourn her own parents when they died in her late 20s – she had the three of us boys to take care of, all under four years old. As I got older, I could feel where the loss had scarred over in her.  Now I start to see what it takes to grieve – the time, the support of a community, an ongoing structure. For the year after the loss of a parent, as I can now see, traditional Jewish practice around death seeks to balance the mourner’s attention, understanding the needs to grieve, to keep remembering the loved one,  and gradually to move outwards to more deeply embrace life. The ideas about how saying Kaddish assists the departed soul’s ascension seem beyond me. But after an extended cry from the bottom of my belly I do feel calmer, more connected, better able to function the next day. And with Mom closer in my mind, there is some discernible upward movement between memory and the present.

***

At the memorial service, our friends and family tell stories of the decades of their relationships with Mom. My boyhood friends show up, and cousins and family friends we haven’t seen in thirty or fifty years. Many from Goldens Bridge, three generations of families from our village.  I am surprised; my family has a kind of amnesia that there are still people who know and love us.  My friends lead more Pete Seeger’s songs, part of our liturgy. I find that I am able to sing this time.  

I give my talk.  Given the strictures of how I grew up, what guy cries openly in public? But what gathering may ever happen where you can tell people are on your side as you become a bearer of your mother’s story?  So I talk through the tears, I pause and weep, I talk some more.  My older brother Daniel speaks, then my father, both facing out bravely at our community to say their words about Mom. During Dad’s talk, I look over at Steve, give a small gesture with my chin toward the podium. His eyes go wide to me for a moment, considering; then a slight shaking of his head, no. After Dad finishes. I help him down from the podium. And when I look back up, there is Steve starting to speak. 

Now Michael leads the group in reciting a piece from the Book of Psalms, translated from Hebrew to Yiddish by the poet Yehoyish (Grandma Sarah told us about him too, and how he translated the entire Hebrew Bible into Yiddish), and then adapted into English by Hershl: 

I’m struck to find here the trees planted by the waters – that “We Shall Not be Moved” (the labor, civil rights and peace anthem that Mom sang with us) has this biblical origin. Held by the Psalm, I can see that Mom did not go in for cynicism, that she never stopped trying hard for her principles, and never stopped reaching for me. And I begin to accept that she is now in memory only. And that in this time that is after her lifetime, feeling these attributes of her is perhaps what is meant by the phrase – may  her memory being for a blessing.

                      And like the tree that’s planted by the waters, We shall not be moved

Is this about her soul being gathered to the ancestors, to join that grove of trees that is planted there, to be tended?  That we might find a path to that place, and there to remember her? Is this how it works?  

After the reception, my brothers, my Dad and I get into a cab to the apartment just before the rain starts, carrying the flowers and a large folio of photos of Mom. We remain brokenhearted; it will be a long year of mourning ahead for the four of us.  But sharing stories of Mom, and reciting and singing, and breaking bread together afterwards on the sidewalk café there on the upper West Side, our community had reconstituted itself in love for her, and us. We sense the possibility for continued reconnection, and the shared honor of keeping her memory alive.

Back at the apartment, sometimes at night after a day of taking care of Dad I’ll go into the room.  I’ll call one of my people.  We may say a line or two of the Kaddish. A memory of Mom can come back, and tears.  Then a few more of the ancient words together.  It’s part of living now.

The post Transposing Kaddish first appeared on Ritualwell.

My mother did not like having her photo taken. Six pregnancies had left her heavier than she wanted to be, and she always felt self-conscious of her size. After a tumor in her sinuses invaded her brain, my mother had to wear glasses with one lens frosted over so she would not see double images. The glasses made her look weird. No wonder she avoided cameras.

When I was about nine, just learning how to use a camera, I sneaked a photo of my mother. In the black-and-white photo, my mom’s face is in profile and her arm is extended. She holds a long blade of grass in her hand. A small white kitten stands on her hind legs, reaching to play with the blade of grass.

The kitten was new to our family then. She had one blue eye and one green eye. My older brother decided that we should name her Angelique because she looked so exotic, like an angel. We called her Angie for short.

My mother died from sinus cancer a few months after I took that photograph. I did not cry at my mom’s memorial service. As we sat in the pews of my childhood church, the pastor instructed us that we should be happy because our mother had gone to heaven. No need for tears.

After the memorial service, my younger brother and I snuck away to play behind the church. We threw clods of dirt down a hillside, watching silently as each one sailed against the gray sky and exploded in a puff of dust.

About two years after my mother’s death, Angie went missing. She was an outdoor cat who liked to roam, smudging her white fur wherever she went and then returning home to lick herself clean. One day she did not come home, and I searched for her. I spotted her crumpled body from a distance, tossed to the side of a street.

Although I had shed no tears for my mother, I cried for many days over that cat. It was only after I was an adult, and I found the photo of my mother and Angie, that I realized why I felt such grief. One loss had intertwined with another. The tears I had not shed for my mother had finally found release.

Grieving should come to us naturally. We all lose people we love in this world, and it has always been that way. Yet grief can elude us. Grief can sneak up on us. Grief can overshadow us, if we do not allow for its expression. Jewish tradition recognizes this truth about grief. Rather than turn away from grief, our tradition has us face it and feel it.

Upon hearing of a death, Jewish tradition instructs us to say “barukh dayan haemet,” “blessed is the true Judge.” These words reflect complete acceptance, even when a death might feel utterly unjust. There can be no avoiding the fact of a death, no pretending that it did not happen.

When we mourn, we tear our clothing or wear a torn black ribbon as a visible sign of grief’s inner pain. We traditionally cover mirrors and sit on low stools, a stark reminder that nothing is normal after the death of a loved one. During shiva, community members visit us and provide for our needs. All these customs are meant to give us an opening to let our grief flow.

When we bury a body, we shovel earth into the grave, filling it. The sound of earth falling on the wood of the coffin is the sound of finality. This is often the moment that suppressed tears find release.

***

Years ago, I attended the funeral of a younger woman who died, leaving behind a husband and school-aged daughter. This was a death in which the words “blessed is the true Judge” rang false. What could be “just” about the death of a young wife and mother?

A large crowd came to the cemetery. While most participated in shoveling earth into the grave, the grave was not filled. The day was brutally hot and humid, so we brought the service to a conclusion before anyone fainted. As the mourners walked soberly to their cars, one young man picked up the shovel and began to fill the grave on his own. He was sweating profusely, but he kept shoveling until the earth formed a gentle mound over the grave.

Afterwards he told me that he needed to do that. In the face of a tragic loss, he had to do something. And this is what he could do. He could act with chesed shel emet, true loving kindness for his friend, and tuck her body into the earth. Only then could he walk away from the grave and turn once again to life.

This is the power of ritual. Ritual gives us an opening to feel our grief.

On the anniversary of a loved one’s death, it is customary to light a memorial candle. We light the match. Hold it to the wick. The flame catches the wick and glows against the darkness, a gentle invitation to remember, to feel, to grieve.

Four times a year we have a Yizkor (Memorial) service. The Yizkor prayer itself is formulaic. Its language is sparse. We read it in silence. Like the memorial candle, Yizkor is merely an invitation. We each bring to the ritual of Yizkor our own memories of those we have lost, we each feel our own pangs of separation, we each open ourselves to the possibility of releasing the tears that must fall.

Many years after my mother died, I finally wept for her loss. As time passed, I grew to understand how her absence shaped me. Her death changed my life in surprising and beautiful ways.

My mother had a strong Christian faith. After she died, I rejected that faith. This marked the beginning of a surprising spiritual journey that led me to join the Jewish people.

Had my mother lived, would I have made that journey? Had she lived, would I have moved away from my home, across an entire continent? Would I have followed the call I felt, the call to devote my life to the work of a rabbi? In many ways, my mother’s death made it possible for me to be who I am today.

Just a few months after my mother died, my father remarried, and our family traveled to the Oregon Coast, to the same beach we visited every year. My younger brother and I spent long hours on the beach by ourselves. Without my mother, the beach felt so strange and desolate. We found ourselves in constant motion, trying to do something, anything, to chase away our sadness.

We decided that this was the year we would finally dam up the stream that ran from the forest, its water tumbling over smooth rocks before widening across the sand and flowing into the ocean’s waves. My mother used to sit by that stream and watch us splash in the water. This was where I took the photograph of her playing with Angie the kitten the year before.

My little brother and I worked on the narrowest spot of the stream, plunking more rocks into the water and piling them into a line. We filled the gaps between the rocks with chunks of driftwood and plugged the smaller holes with damp sand. Our older brother wandered over to watch us work. He suggested that we build a channel through the sand to relieve the pressure as the water level rose behind our dam.

We succeeded in stopping the flow for a moment. Water pooled up behind the dam and we gave each other a high five. Then a small chunk of damp sand broke free. We moved to plug the hole, but then another hole opened, and another. Water trickled, and then burst through the gaps. Our dam could not stop the water as it flowed across the beach to the ocean.

The next morning we returned to the stream. A line of rocks was all that remained of our dam, and the water flowed freely through it. Overnight the waves had worn smooth our channel, erasing all evidence of our labors.

Yet overnight, on its own, the stream had etched a new pattern on the beach, intricate and beautiful, as it flowed to the sea.

The post Photograph: An Essay about Grief first appeared on Ritualwell.

Ritualwell publishes 400 original pieces a year, working with 800 writers. More recently, more than 100 writers have met weekly to support one another, growing their writing practice in Ritualwell’s online creative community called ADVOT. This coming year, 25 writers of all backgrounds and levels of experience will meet online to create original work, some of which will be published on Rituawell and in a yearly anthology of Jewish poetry, prayer and song.  

“There is so much competing for our attention, but for me, I am still feeling supported and uplifted by ADVOT,” said Cathleen Cohen, a former poet Laureate of Montgomery County, PA. “What pulls me to continue to be part of it is the community and the relationships I have formed. And Ritualwell has done such a wonderful job of addressing issues and concerns in the world that affect us and influence us. ADVOT has strengthened my confidence as a specifically Jewish writer.”  

To maximize this kind of impact and respond to the strains Jewish writers are experiencing, Ritualwell is launching a new initiative, Jewish Writers’ Circle. Starting this fall in multiple cities across North America and Europe, as many as twenty Jewish Writers’ Circles will meet monthly, with Ritualwell providing session guides and coaching support. These circles will nurture Jewish literary community, strengthen participants’ writing, and enrich their lives with Jewish wisdom.  

The Jewish Writers’ Circles is a passion project for Cyd Weissman, Reconstructing Judaism’s vice president for innovation and impact, who serves as lead curriculum designer. “I believe in this project because it will be a generative safe space for Jewish creatives. Today, more than ever, Jewish writers need each other to grow their craft and their souls,” said Weissman. “As I approach retirement, I see Jewish Writers’ Circles as the innovative- impactful exclamation point to my career spent nurturing Jewish community.”  

The initial idea for Jewish Writers’ Circle came from Adva Chattler, managing director for engagement and innovation for Reconstructing Judaism. In Chattler’s close work with writers enrolled in ADVOT, she repeatedly heard of writers’ growing desire for in-person  

connection in post-pandemic times. Fulfilling Ritualwell’s commitment to meet emerging needs in the Jewish community, the idea grew and has found an enthusiastic audience.  

The curriculum for the monthly Jewish Circles gatherings draws inspiration from Jewish wisdom and literary techniques. For example, a session built around Tefilat HaDerekh (the traveler’s prayer) invites discussion of why the prayer is written in the first-person plural—and how point of view shapes narrative voice.  

Participants in Jewish Writers’ Circles will receive discounts on Ritualwell’s online learning programs, known as Immersions, as well as free admission to a December virtual event featuring acclaimed Israeli author Etgar Keret. Writers will also be encouraged to submit their work for publication on Ritualwell. At the close of the first year, Ritualwell plans to publish an anthology showcasing the best work created in the circles.  

“ADVOT and the Jewish Writers’ Circles spur personal spiritual growth,” said Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer, Ritualwell’s Director of virtual programs and the author of several books. “Participants will come away with new perspectives, maybe a new appreciation for the richness of Torah study. From a writer’s perspective, there is so much we can learn from Jewish tradition.”  

Partial funding for the Jewish Writers’ Circles comes from Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, which awarded a grant through its Small Groups Technology Lab program, supporting transformative micro-communities for Jews and fellow travelers.  

Ayalon Eliach, Chief Ideas Officer of Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, said that his organization sees that lay-led, regularly meeting small groups like Jewish Writers’ Circles have historically been loci for Jewish community, and helped people improve their own lives and the larger world in significant ways. Eliach believes that, today, small groups are an underprioritized component of the Jewish ecosystem and something the foundation is committed to supporting.  

“Jewish Writers’ Circles are bringing Jewish wisdom into the room in ways that feel deeply integrated into the actual writing process,” said Eliach.  

“When someone is engaging with Jewish wisdom in these writers’ circles,” he added, “it’s giving them the chance to be in profound, creative conversation with it in a way that enriches their innermost selves and, hopefully, helps them thrive as people off the page.”  

As a project of Reconstructing Judaism, Ritualwell is honored to receive funding from Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah to craft these new spaces for Jewish gathering and learning. As Weissman said, “Jewish Writers’ Circles are sure to be an oasis for the aching souls of writers yearning to freely express themselves—just the antidote the doctor ordered for these times.”  

Those interested in joining, leading, or starting a Jewish Writers’ Circle can contact Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer at gkaplan-mayer@reconstructingjudaism.org.  

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1. The Parsha Is About Oaths—and the Cost of Keeping Them

Parashat Va’etchanan opens with one of the most intimate and painful moments in Torah. Moshe, after leading Bnei Yisrael for forty years, pleads with God for one thing: to be allowed to enter the Land.

“וָאֶתְחַנַּן אֶל־ה’ בָּעֵת הַהִוא…”
“And I pleaded with Hashem at that time…” — Devarim 3:23

But God answers:

“רַב־לָךְ… אַל תּוֹסֶף דַּבֵּר אֵלַי עוֹד בַּדָּבָר הַזֶּה”
“Enough. Do not speak to Me further about this matter.” — Devarim 3:26

According to Devarim Rabbah 2:9, Moshe turns to the people and says:

“I prayed for you—why didn’t you pray for me?”

Moshe’s punishment wasn’t failure—it was sacrifice. He upheld his oath to protect the people, even at the cost of his own dream. His silence was his final act of leadership. His oath held—even when it hurt.

1. I Took an Oath Too

I grew up in the mountains of rural Appalachia—raised by a single mother, daughter of a blue-collar car mechanic who died young. I became an epidemiologist because I believed public health could fix the same disparities and adverse events that shaped my childhood.

The night before I was given the lowest possible performance rating, I didn’t go home.
I slept two hours on the floor of an empty office.
Then I got up, went back to my desk, and kept working—hoping it would be enough.

It wasn’t.

Later, I requested time off for sacred holidays. CDC policy allows those hours to be repaid over 13 pay periods. But I was told I had to repay them in one week, at 7 a.m., under conditions no one else was subjected to.

That’s not accommodation. That’s coercion.

I broke halacha that day—not because I stopped believing, but because I was cornered.
Just to hold on. Just to survive.

And still—I went back to work.

Because that’s what people like me do.

III. The Constitution Has an Invisible Word: “All”

When I started in civilian service, I took an oath.  My oath was to defend the Constitution of the United States. But there’s an invisible word in that oath: All.

Not just white Americans. Not just straight, cis, comfortable Americans.

All includes:

• The queer kid in hiding
• The abused woman
• The child in foster care
• The trans woman on a waitlist
• The Black man with a Bible in one hand and a target on his back

These are today’s almana v’yatom—the widow and orphan the Torah commands us to protect.

There is no escape clause in my oath.
Not “when it’s easy.”
Not “when it’s safe.”
Not “when it’s comfortable.”

There is no room in my oath for white silence or white women’s tears.

Because truth is the ultimate defense.

1. Why I Sent It Unencrypted

I sent my writing without encryption because I knew the risk—and I did it anyway.

In a time when telling the truth can cost you your career, your protection, your peace—telling it anyway is holy.

I believed if I just worked harder, things would get better. That if I didn’t cause trouble, I’d be protected.

But I’ve learned that silence isn’t safety.
Silence is complicity.

And I choose truth.

1. The Fire This Time

“כִּי ה’ אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֵשׁ אֹכְלָה הוּא…”
“For Hashem your God is a consuming fire…” — Devarim 4:24

Sixteen years ago, I gave birth and nearly died. I had done everything “right.” None of it protected me.

“That was the night the Blue Collar Daughter burned.”

The girl who believed that being polite, prepared, small, and sweet would keep her safe—she didn’t survive.

And thank God.

That fire didn’t destroy me. It refined me.

It gave me a new Torah—of being a mother—written in scar tissue and survival.

1. I Didn’t Like My Name—Until I Grew Into It

My Hebrew name is Yiskah bat Talia.

For a long time, I hated it.
It made me feel more “other.” One more thing to explain in a town where my mother and I were the only Jews.

But in Judaism, names aren’t given to make us comfortable.
They are invitations to become someone who sees.

Yiskah means “to see.”
The Midrash says she saw with divine inspiration. Some say she was Sarah Imeinu.

I didn’t like my name when I thought it was a burden.
I love it now that I know it’s a mission.

Now I carry it the way it was meant to be carried:
Out loud.

VII. The Shema: A Whisper from the Fire

“שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל… וְאָהַבְתָּ אֵת ה’ אֱלֹהֶיךָ…”
“Hear O Israel… You shall love Hashem your God…” — Devarim 6:4–5

I have whispered the Shema through fear and fury.

Through betrayal. Through bureaucracy. Through burnout. Through broken halacha I never wanted to break.

Still, I say it.
Still, I stay.
Still, I love.

Because even scorched faith is still sacred.
And even when I break—I do not break my oath.

VIII. Freedom Is Just Another Word…

“Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.”
— Janis Joplin

My formative youth was shaped but Janis Joplin, Marianne Faithful, and the Velvet Underground.

That line from Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee, That line stays with me.

Sometimes the only thing left is the truth—and that’s when you speak.

Because truth isn’t safe.
But it is holy.  

1. Closing Thought

“I still believe in the mission. But belief isn’t enough without protection. Without justice. Without change.”

I’m not sharing this for pity.
I’m sharing it because I know I’m not the only one.

Someone else is skipping meals.
Someone else is breaking down behind a muted Zoom screen—and still showing up.

We deserve better.
I deserve better.

And I will not stop until we get it.

Because I took an oath.
I keep it.
And I will not be erased.

A Call to Courage

Moshe wasn’t just denied.
He was asked to sacrifice—to give up the promise for the sake of the people.
And he did.

“May I die, and 100 like me, if not a fingernail of Israel shall be harmed.”
— Midrash Tanchuma, Va’etchanan

I am not Moshe.
But I have also been asked to give something up—to break in quiet places, to be faithful in the dark.
And I said yes.
Not because it was easy, but because it was holy.

Now I’m asking you:

Be brave.

Choose to stand even when it’s not safe.
Choose to speak even when it costs you.
Choose the kind of faith that requires action, risk, and sometimes even loss.

There is no Torah without fire.
No freedom without sacrifice.
And no oath that means anything unless we are willing to live it out loud.

We do not need perfection.
We need courage.

Courage like Moshe.
Courage like truth.
Courage like yours.

Yiskah bat Talia (Jessica S. Rogers Brown) is a Jewish writer, epidemiologist, and former educator at Congregation Bet Haverim in Atlanta. Raised in Appalachia, she writes at the intersection of faith, trauma, and justice. Her work blends Chabad spiritual depth with Reconstructionist inclusivity—and speaks for those walking through fire while holding onto sacred truth.

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What would you do if you married one man and were told you were divorcing someone different? Well, that is what happened to me. Yup, blindsided. Yup, said a few choice words, and loudly.  Not my finest moment, but a memorable one nonetheless. Here’s my story and I am sticking to it. 

In my mid-twenties, I met a man. I was on vacation, not at a Club Med or singles adventure. It was overseas and life seemed simpler in the early 1980s. Anyway, we corresponded because there were time zone differences, stints in the armed forces, and costly overseas phone calls. We met in person a few times, met families and friends, and made some decisions about jobs, relationships and moving. He came to the United States and we got married. It was a small ceremony in the living room of my parents’ house, the house where I was raised. Among those present was my rabbi, the one under whose tutelage I had my Bat Mitzvah.  On the small wooden table to the side of us, as we stood under the chuppah, were the glass to be stepped on, a glass of wine, and a ketubah.  The later is the Jewish wedding contract. These are signed by the officiant, witnesses and the bride and groom. Among the details this document includes are the Hebrew names of the people getting married. More on that detail to come. 

It was a nice summer’s day. After the ceremony, phone calls were made, a few photos were snapped, telegrams arrived and la-de-da, live as a married couple began. A little short of a decade later, we had two children, a girl, and a boy. The doctors shared with us that we should count our blessings and we did. The children grew with the daughter and son enrolled in public school and various activities. Among the institutions the family became part of was a synagogue. Often, we attended Shabbat services, and holiday celebrations. We enrolled the children in Hebrew School and volunteered for various events.  

And yet, slowly, the happy loving bubble was deflating. I was actively pursuing a career and my post-graduate education, the kids were basically healthy and doing the work of decent students, and he was occasionally between jobs. At one point, he experienced a few health-related incidents which required calls to 911, visits to the hospital and eventually a pacemaker and yearly pediatric cardiology visits for the kids. Being out of work was “never his fault.” I carried the health benefits and so my work and the glimpses of creativity and fun it provided became a respite, occasionally.   

Then, as I was in the backyard with my son, tossing a baseball which he subsequently hit through the kitchen window, and a football that went into the neighbor’s yard, the neighbor had a chat with me. Why was I doing this? Where was their dad? Oh, slough that off, yet it needled me once in a while.   

Fast forward to a lovely Bat Mitzvah for our daughter filled with her wonderful recitation of the haftorah, various family members and friends participating, and a sunny day was enjoyed by all, or almost all as one never knows about those hushed comments at such gatherings. I share this detail because for her Bat Mitzvah ceremony I created a booklet. We would have many people attending who were either not Jewish or unfamiliar with the ceremony, so as an educator and author, I made the playbill. Among the items to note that for the years of our daughter’s life and for our married life, and in his bachelor days, my husband was a Cohen. That meant something special when it came to being called up to the bimah for an honor. Among the Cohanim, they receive the first honor and their Hebrew name is recited each time. Suffice it to say that I had heard his name at least 50 times over the years, if not more.  Today, I can still say it; keep that in mind.  The person who distributes the honors is given the title of Gabbi, to rhyme with rabbi.  The Gabbi often keeps a rolodex of the English and Hebrew names of each congregant because it is imperative to speak those names correctly when one is called up to the Torah for an Aliyah. Being called for such an honor occurred during our daughter’s Bat Mitzvah. This is something to note.  

Two years later, my dad became ill. He went from a visit to the emergency room, to a stay in the hospital to a stay in a nursing home. It is somewhat of a blur to me, and other moments are very clear. One of the moments was going to change my life and that of my husband and children. While visiting, sometimes with my mom, I looked at the two of them, my parents. Through over 50 years of marriage, moves across county, and ups and downs, they were still together. People told her she didn’t have to visit every day, and occasionally she would skip a day.  One day, I realized that if I were in her shoes, that I would not be as dedicated to my husband. Yet, I should have felt that tug, that oh my gosh if this was us, I would be there visiting and bring this that and the other thing for you to read, to listen to and to be comfortable. Slowly, more air came out of the bubble; the marriage was dissolving.  

Unfortunately, my father passed away, having never returned home. Yet, he did have frequent visits by his two grandchildren and friends. He passed away a few days before Thanksgiving. When we had the burial and sat shiva, I knew this was also the end of my marriage. Yet, I had not taken legal action. I had taken a deep breath or two, and was weighing things in my mind.  

Eventually, I’ll spare you the legal details, we were separated and divorced. I was in my late 40s and circling back to the births of our children, was not going to have any more of my own children. My mom asked me to get a Get, a Jewish divorce. After all, without one, the kids could be considered illegitimate in some communities.  While a tad old-fashioned, I was aware of what a Get was and investigated it. There is a Bet Din, a tribunal, and the exchange of papers. Another part of this was a meeting with a rabbi. That would be the day I lost it. 

A few details until that point, though. My cousin arranged for me to meet with her rabbi, someone she respected. You see, the rabbi at the synagogue we had been part of was not someone I respected anymore. He had never reached out to me during the separation or divorce; I became a non-entity there. One of the items required by the rabbi to write the Get was a list of our Hebrew names. Where would I find that? Who would give that to me? Ah, I had the framed ketubah, marriage contract. I had the Bat Mitzvah and by this point Bar Mitzvah programs, and I had the Gabbi. So off I went to bring the names to this rabbi.  A few weeks later and with the fee paid, I had a document in my hands. But, we weren’t done. 

I had to appear before a tribunal, three men that I would ask to serve in this capacity, and the rabbi. In retrospect, I chose wisely. I asked the Gabbi, and two men who had been friends of ours and who I believed would be impartial. And then there was the rabbi. On that evening, I arrived at the synagogue and walked up a long flight of steps. That was the familiar part. I entered the rabbi’s office and shared the paper that I had been entrusted with from the other rabbi, the writer of the Get.  

Now, take a breath because here is what happened.  The rabbi began reading the document out loud and paused. He said that the information was not correct so the Get wasn’t valid. I didn’t understand. What could be wrong? So I asked. He said that the name of the Get didn’t match; the man’s Hebrew name did not match what he had received. Stunned, a moment of silence and then a few guttural words were spoken. I was told to leave the room while the rabbi said he would call my ex-husband.  Steam came out of my ears and other words out of my mouth as I was escorted out. However, in my defense, the three gentlemen did say that my ex was a Cohen, that we had heard his Hebrew name numerous times, and the Gabbi confirmed it.  

Oh, at this moment telling me to calm down just got me boiling even more. Pacing, cursing, pacing and some silence ensued. Then the door opened and we re-entered the rabbi’s office. Shoulders raised and hot under the collar, not holding my breath at all. This was ridiculous and I said so. Admittedly, not a top ten glamorous moment for me, and it was unsettling for the Bet Din, too.  

According to the rabbi, my ex-husband had changed his Hebrew name because it was the same as his deceased brother-in-law. Well, I’ll be! When did that take place? No answer. What was his new name? No answer. I called my at that point former sister-in-law to ask because after all what did I have to lose.  She had no idea that this had taken place. She questioned the accuracy of what was happening.  However, the rabbi said that the Get would be accepted because that was his Hebrew name at the time.  Oh, please do not patronize me, was my remark or something similar at least. You see, they were poker buddies and maintained a friendship; he should have recused himself from this tribunal. I stated such, was handed the paper, and it was over.  

Did you hear my footsteps down the long set of stairs? Oh, you could’ve that night. A few years after that Bet Din, I made an appointment to meet with that rabbi. He was surprised. I told him, in person, that he had never reached out to me and that the congregation had no group at that time for people experiencing divorce. I suggested outreach. A bit after that, I was officially no longer part of that congregation.  

About a decade later, I went to a rabbi that I respected. I asked him if the marriage had been valid or if it was not and if I should get some sort of annulment. My ex had lied about his name, about who he was, so what should I do?  After pausing, this learned man asked me what I would do with such an annulment or why pursue this. What would I gain? Perhaps I would get a lawyer? Perhaps I could regain some of the divorce settlement that I paid him? This rabbi suggested letting this chapter be closed. What good would come of it? 

And so here we are today, with you reading about The Get That Almost Got Me. In case you are wondering, my kids do know about the Bet Din and that rabbi. I made choices. I did not pursue the change in identity, the name change. The name change I did get was to remove his last name from mine, to unhyphenate the names. With that came new credit cards, a new license and more. The kids are now on their own, one in the early thirties and one in the late twenties. One with a strong sense of a Judaic community and one who does not associate, at least not outwardly.   

Occasionally, I think about this series of events. If it happened to you, what would you do?  

The post The Get That Almost Got Me first appeared on Ritualwell.

When looking at this lead-off commandment, two things are apparent, though perhaps not immediately so.  The first is that this is not a commandment at all. The second is that this God does not self-describe in the more familiar and traditional way as the God of our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

If words matter, and I believe we can agree that they do, then we must proceed as if these words, (and those that precede and follow), were carefully and intentionally chosen. For the purposes of this exploration, we will not focus on whether these words were God’s or our human poet unspooling and preserving our extensive foundational story. Either way, because they have endured for 3000+ years and become a veritable cornerstone of Western civilization, and the Abrahamic religions, we will also assert that they take their place in the canon of works worthy of being identified as Art.

As Art, these Ten Commandments must have endured because they function on multiple levels: they have manifest meaning and they have latent meaning; they can be understood for their face value and they have deep resonances beyond what is immediately apparent.

Before exploring the various dimensions of our Commandments, it may be helpful to review briefly a developmental perspective on the acquisition of morality. Psychologists (Piaget, Kohlberg, Gilligan, Loevinger) have long studied the processes by which moral development unfolds. Though each enumerates slight differences in how various stages are defined, there is broad agreement that moral development in humans progresses in somewhat predictable patterns through a hierarchy of stages. The earliest stages focus on fear of punishment, fear of being caught, impulsive desires to gratify self-interest (a popular secular example of this stage might be the character of Thenardier in Les Miserables). This stage transitions to one characterized by conformity and obedience to external rules that are deemed to be absolute, unchanging and authoritative (the constable, Javert, in Les Mis would be an example of this stage). Eventually, in healthy development, this stage evolves into a morality governed by an internal barometer, one that acknowledges context and intent, and is regulated autonomously, balancing one’s personal interests, with the well-being of others near and distant, and with concern and action to safeguard the larger social contract (Jean Valjean embodies this stage).*

With all of this as the foundation, let us parse these 10 Commandments.

As noted above, the first commandment is not a commandment at all.  It is an identifier that does a few things.  It communicates gravitas, as God is the giver. It acknowledges a current relationship, as God is “your” (our)  God, not (only) the God of ancestors. And it affirms OUR identity as a free people. In this way it sets the stage that the set of commandments that follows is going to be about partnership and freedom.

Traditionally, the 10 Commandments have been understood for their manifest content only, as a series of restrictions. As such, they have “lived” their entire “lives” on the dark side of the moon, so to speak; they have “suffered” as a set of negative, finger-wagging “don’ts.” But, what if, at their core, there is a glowing phosphorescent light.

What if all of the 9 that follow the first are not simple restrictions, but rather variations on the theme of freedom. What if they are blinking yellow lights that say: “these are the kinds of things that will send your soul or your psyche right back to Egypt.” What if the author of this list understood, like Erich Fromm, that we humans are prone to escaping the very freedom we claim to seek, and therefore, fall easy prey to behaviors that would re-enslave us.(Examples of these are ubiquitous, throughout history). What if God, (or the human author speaking on God’s behalf…which is its own irony as a violation of the 2^nd commandment) is saying: “I freed you politically, but I want more for you; I want you to keep your “very being” free…and here are the potholes to avoid in order to do that, and here are the prescriptions to adhere to in order to remain truly free.

When seen from this side, the violation of any of these commandments brings with it particular kinds of enslavement or bondage: to self-vanity; to narcissism, to envy, to anger, to materialism, wealth, power, possessivism, false feelings of self-sufficiency, unbalanced values (work; people; rest).  When one does what is proscribed or fails to do what is prescribed, one carries inner burdens that, like Egypt, narrow what is possible, limit what is thinkable, and metaphorically tie one’s hands from holding inner liberation.

In a stunning embodiment of Art, these 10 carry two apparently opposing messages. At one end of the spectrum is an authoritarian God who imposes concrete personal restrictions on how we act, intimidating us to behave because we are being watched. Many religions interpose a punishment consequence (Hell) for violations. As such, they function as the “entry” level of moral development. However, they also allow for an understanding, representative of the middle levels of moral development, that they are an agreed upon set of codes, and therefore, require conformity if one is to belong to the “group” (however small or large one understands that to be). This middle level of development is marked by simple conformity to unquestioned codes, but, as one continues to mature through this stage, one transitions to an understanding that civilization occurs only by curtailing some personal freedoms. Eventually, moral behavior becomes more fully internalized, and the self-regulation of behavior is not experienced as a limitation, but as a liberation, wherein one often wrestles with the many facets of morality, but in this process experiences a full range of one’s own humanity. It is this liberation that is the glowing phosphorescent heartbeat of the 10 Commandments and of a more expansive experience of the giver-God. Within these 10 is contained the full range of possible moral development, and concomitantly, the full range of how God might be known. God might be understood as the Authoritative-giver, the restrictor, the watchful potentially punishing eye, or God might be experienced as our most ardent cheerleader, giving us the blueprint, that will allow us to safeguard precious freedom. Both Gods reside within these 10, and the God we know, as with all things, is dependent upon the self we feel and understand. If we are fearful conformists, our God will be authoritative and absolute. If we know ourselves as many-dimensioned fully human beings, our God will be a kaleidoscopic mosaic of mystery, and we will feel ourselves, with God, to be partners in the holy endeavors of creation.

*The phonic echoes of the names Javert and Jean Valjean, suggest that the two represent one character at different developmental stages…the Javert level of morality can no longer exist once one moves to an autonomously mediated morality. Once Jean Valjean saves Javert, and is no longer afraid of Javert’s unyielding adherence to retribution, Valjean is liberated, symbolized by Javert’s demise.

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My bat mitzvah was a marker along the path of a rich Jewish journey that has held my home congregation, Congregation Bet Haverim (CBH) in Atlanta at the heart, but which has also had me exploring the fringes in what some call Jewitchery. I began calling myself a Jewitch, first almost in jest and then with increasing seriousness. (There is a lot more to be said about this term and my evolving relationship with it, but that’s for a later blog!) So, rather than becoming a bat mitzvah, I became a “witch mitzvah.”

The traditional terms of bat and bar mitzvah literally translate into “daughter/son of the commandment.” A Witch Mitzvah, possibly coined by me, is how I express my connection to Judaism: deeply feminine, Earth-based, and witchy. I seek out the voices and stories of women and trans and non-binary people which have been hidden or actively suppressed in Judaism. The word “witch” was applied to herbalists, midwives, healers, wise women, priestesses, queer people and others who were (and sadly still are) actively hunted throughout history in order to uphold the patriarchy and to erase women’s autonomy, wisdom and agency.  

As a crystal-carrying pagan, I was over the moon to find all of my Earth-based reverence possible within Judaism. I already knew that the Jewish wheel of the year turned with the seasons and was a lunar calendar but over the years, I found that all of the rituals, practices, herbalism and, yes, magic, that I practiced as a pagan, existed in Judaism. Sometimes hidden in plain sight. Incantations, amulets, herbal traditions, ritual movement – it’s all here! I am so grateful to the priestesses, rabbis and ordinary folks who have uncovered women’s rituals and traditions and re-energized them.

I have been traveling this path for many years now, and as a Reconstructionist Jewitch, I create new rituals and practices based on ancient traditions. Part of this journey includes a deep dive into my relationship with prayer language. 

In 2019, I began using prayers in the feminized Hebrew created by The Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute and playing with ungendered Hebrew brought into being by the Non Binary Hebrew Project. 

The Kohenet siddur  – the priestess prayerbook – uses Goddess and Queen, and the non-binary Hebrew replaces King and Queen with Sovereign. While both of those offer alternatives to a lord and master God, I actually prefer de-personified prayer language, as I don’t resonate with Spirit as King, Queen, or any Sovereign. Rather than using Adonai, which means master or lord, I use Shekinah, which, while it can be thought of as Goddess or the feminine face of God, also describes Spirit as the Indwelling Presence between us, within us and around us. I also use Havaya which means Was, Is and Will Be. I prefer ruach – breath, spirit or wind instead of melech – king. 

Ruth Brin wrote:

When men were children, they thought of God as Father;

When men were slaves, they thought of God as a Master;

When men were subjects, they thought of God as a King.

But I am a woman, not a slave, not a subject,

not a child who longs for God as father or mother.

I might imagine God as teacher or friend, but those Images,

like king, master, father or mother, are too small for me now.

God is the force of motion and light in the universe;

God is the strength of life on our planet;

God is the power moving us to do good;

God is the source of love springing up in us.

God is far beyond what we can comprehend.

Her words capture my feelings perfectly and I am grateful to have prayer language which reflects my connection to the ineffable Spirit of mystery.

At my witch mitzvah, I used feminized and ungendered prayer language in a siddur – prayer book – that I created for the occasion. I acknowledged potential discomfort and wrote “It may feel uncomfortable, and you may find your tongue tripping on familiar prayers. We will move a little more slowly in the prayers for that reason. If that feels uncomfortable, I invite you to just notice, to return to your breath and to consider the fact that there are hundreds of metaphors to describe God, and none of them even come close to describing the Great Mystery. Each of you should feel free to use whatever language that best connects you to this moment.”

I presented all of the above as my d’var – word of Torah – which I offered as introduction to my Torah portion. My parsha – portion – was Mishpatim from the book of Exodus. Mishpatim  means “laws” or “ordinances,” and contains a very long series of civil, ethical, and ritual laws given to the Israelites. My specific parsha contains laws concerning personal injuries and damages. It’s where you hear the famous ayin tachat ayin – an eye for an eye phrase. It’s a complicated parsha as so many of them are. While I found that it provided immense fodder for reflection, I didn’t actually “like it.”

So I did what any good witch would do and turned to Toratah, the regendered Hebrew Bible. In 2016 artist Yael Kanarek had the chutzpah to rewrite and re-gender the Bible! She was over the patriarchy! And really, who isn’t? She writes, “The Bible has been translated into the largest number of languages ​​ever and has a huge impact on human culture and creativity. It was written over a long period of time, and the process of its sanctification also took hundreds of years. It describes the theology, politics and law of a patriarchal world. The biblical law favors men over women and most of the exemplary figures it paints are male.

The Regendered Bible, by contrast, offers a matriarchal structure for the sacred mythology, for the narratives that establish self and national identity, for politics and the law.” Yael and her writing partner, Tamar Biala, have been rewriting the books with incredible integrity and precision, but they hadn’t gotten to Mishpatim yet. So I wrote to her and asked her if she would do me the honor of providing a translation of my parsha. And she did! So exciting! 

But after reading it, I found that a list of laws, punishments, and rules pertaining to enslavement and injury is actually no better in a world ruled by women. Yael and Tamar note this on the Beit Toratah website: “Toratah was born from a feminist consciousness, but it does not reflect a feminist utopia.” I sat with Mishpatim in both Torah and Toratah and found only sadness. The eye for an eye and a bruise for a bruise still existed, and the slave is still a slave. That’s not the world I want to live in. 

I have long struggled to develop a relationship with Torah. I have found connection when other people pull out passages and put them in chant form or poetry or art or good divrei Torah – words of Torah. I am moved by these offerings but I have struggled to find my own way through text study and connect with this odd ancient set of writing that is filled with really flawed people making really poor choices and being variously smote by an angry God who claims to be a God of love but asks often really terrible things and wreaks terrible vengeance. So, yeah, Torah, Torahtah. I was bummed.

And then I took the coolest class I’ve ever taken called “Olamic Incantations, crafting poetic incantations that reshape our world from the inside out” led by the wild and fabulous Hebrew priestess,  Kohenet Angelique. Olam means world and Olamic, which may be a made up word, means “pertaining to the world.” An incantation, also known as a spell, is a spoken word, phrase, or formula of power, often recited as part of a larger ritual, which is recited in order to effect a magical result. The class on Olamic incantations invited us to write our own sacred liturgy and create prayers for the world that we want to see.

OK, you with me? it’s about to all come together. We have a sad list of punitive responses to injuries and transgressions existing in both Torah and Torahtah and I bring my sadness to this magical class and I am invited to rewrite the parsha using language that describes the world that I want to live in. The world that I want to help speak into being. At this point, I wasn’t envisioning doing anything with the writing, I was just dreaming and writing. I rewrote Mishpatim as an incantation, a plea, a cry to the world – let us create a different world.

Shortly after that I got serious about figuring out what becoming a bat mitzvah entailed and began exploring the formats and the possibilities.  I started asking about the rules and what I could or couldn’t do and what I needed to do. And I found out I could do pretty much anything I wanted!  And the world swung wide open and brought us to that day in February.

The mystical book called the Zohar describes Torah as Black Fire on White Fire. The black fire is the words themselves. The white fire is the meaning making. The blank space between the letters is where we insert breath and aliveness. Torah is alive. Each time we read or chant or write, we are speaking the aliveness of spirit into being. Conjuring, if you will, the Divine into the space between us. We do it through loving, through singing, through caring for each other, through art, through our breathing. Reconstructing Judaism invites us to dive deeply into the ancient words and to find meaning and relevance for this modern world. Jewitchery builds on that and invites in the power of energy, breath, intent and love to speak into being the world that you want to see. 

And so, my offering at my witch mitzvah was threefold, built on a scaffold of energy: first were the verses which I chanted from Torah. I did this traditionally, learning Hebrew, learning the trope – the rhythm – and reading from the actual Torah. That journey alone was profound. Until a year ago, I did not know my whole aleph bet. I am still decoding, but I did it. I learned it and I chanted it, my gabbai sheni – Hebrew guide – and friend standing supportively by my side. 

Then I chanted the same verses from Toratah which were beautifully scribed by my beloved. I did a combination of formal trope and improvisation as there are words that are similar and words that are different. I gave myself permission to approach the words with looseness rather than fitting them into the formal trope. Part of the wrestling was allowing women’s voices and experience to rise from the barriers put in place by the eons of male rabbis who blocked access to women’s voices and connection to the Divine through reading Torah. Torahtah is still emerging and being birthed into the world. I am grateful that I was able to bring the work of Beit Toratah to life a little more.

And then I offered my Torah – my Olamic incantation describing the world that I want to see based on the laws written in the parsha. My visual representation of this is below and all three offerings are included at the end. I allowed myself to be open as to how I would share – believing that I would meet the moment and trust that my spirit and voice would know what to do. And I did. As I improvised the tune, I invited the congregation to stand, to join hands, to lift their voices. I sent out my prayer into the world and was held by my community. As soon as I finished the third offering, the chorus burst into Elah as a “spiritual chatimah,” a seal on the experience. I stood in front of the Torah with my extended family by marriage, my beloved, and our two young adult sons in front of a loving congregation composed of nearly everyone whom I adore in the world and felt the most complete that I have ever felt.

The witch mitzvah process was one of the most generative, creative, challenging, healing, and exciting explorations that I have ever done. It involved generational healing, as I explored what was happening in my own family when I was 13, and also wrestling with my changing family dynamics following the death of my beloved mother. It provided opportunity for vulnerability in asking for help and inviting collaborators to make the day happen for me. It involved deep wrestling with patriarchal norms, trudging through the sludge of expectations and assumptions of what it means to be Jewish, to be a woman, to be a woman entering her 60’s, and so much more. It involved leaning even more deeply into what is the ongoing, core challenge of my life: that of living a life of authenticity, listening to spirit and working to create a world that works for everyone; one that centers love of nature and people, one where there is no more hatred. One where people’s hearts are open to the incredible miraculous mystery of being alive on this planet. I had many sleepless nights and shed gallons of tears. I learned Hebrew, for heaven’ sake. I talked my friends’ ears off as I shared my journey with them. I received so much love and support as I brought my questions to folks who hold different insights into Hebrew, Torah, and ritual. I surrendered again and again and again. 

I am still integrating the lessons and the experience – there was so much richness and the energy is still shimmering within me and within my community. I am so grateful.

Torah / Toratoh Exodus 21:20-25 מִּשְׁפָּטִים‎ Mishpatim

(כ) וְכִֽי־יַכֶּה֩ אִ֨ישׁ אֶת־עַבְדּ֜וֹ א֤וֹ אֶת־אֲמָתוֹ֙ בַּשֵּׁ֔בֶט וּמֵ֖ת תַּ֣חַת יָד֑וֹ נָקֹ֖ם יִנָּקֵֽם׃

(כא) אַ֥ךְ אִם־י֛וֹם א֥וֹ יוֹמַ֖יִם יַעֲמֹ֑ד לֹ֣א יֻקַּ֔ם כִּ֥י כַסְפּ֖וֹ הֽוּא׃ {ס} 

(כב) וְכִֽי־יִנָּצ֣וּ אֲנָשִׁ֗ים וְנָ֨גְפ֜וּ אִשָּׁ֤ה הָרָה֙ וְיָצְא֣וּ יְלָדֶ֔יהָ וְלֹ֥א יִהְיֶ֖ה אָס֑וֹן עָנ֣וֹשׁ יֵעָנֵ֗שׁ כַּֽאֲשֶׁ֨ר יָשִׁ֤ית עָלָיו֙ בַּ֣עַל הָֽאִשָּׁ֔ה וְנָתַ֖ן בִּפְלִלִֽים׃

(כג) וְאִם־אָס֖וֹן יִהְיֶ֑ה וְנָתַתָּ֥ה נֶ֖פֶשׁ תַּ֥חַת נָֽפֶשׁ׃ (כד) עַ֚יִן תַּ֣חַת עַ֔יִן שֵׁ֖ן תַּ֣חַת שֵׁ֑ן יָ֚ד תַּ֣חַת יָ֔ד רֶ֖גֶל תַּ֥חַת רָֽגֶל׃ 

(כה) כְּוִיָּה֙ תַּ֣חַת כְּוִיָּ֔ה פֶּ֖צַע תַּ֣חַת פָּ֑צַע חַבּוּרָ֕ה תַּ֖חַת חַבּוּרָֽה׃ {ס}

20. When a slave-owning party strikes a slave, male or female, with a rod, who dies there and then, this must be avenged. 
21. But if the victim survives a day or two, this is not to be avenged, since the one is the other’s property. 
22. When [two or more] parties fight, and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results, but no other damage ensues, the one responsible shall be fined according as the woman’s husband may exact, the payment to be based on reckoning.
23. But if other damage ensues, the penalty shall be life for life, 
24. eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 
25. burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

Toratah Exodus 21:20-25 מִּשְׁפָּטִים‎ Mishpatim

כ וְכִי־תַכֶּה֩ אִשָּׁ֨ה אֶת־עַבְדָּתָ֜הּ א֤וֹ אֶת־זְרֹעָהּ֙ בַּשֵּׁ֔בֶט וּמֵ֖תָה תַּ֣חַת יָדָ֑הּ נָקֹ֖ם תִּנָּקֵֽם׃

כא אַ֥ךְ אִם־י֛וֹם א֥וֹ יוֹמַ֖יִם תַּֽעֲמֹ֑ד לֹ֣א תֻקַּ֔ם כִּ֥י כַסְפָּ֖הּ הִֽיא׃ (ס)

כב וְכִֽי־תִנָּצֶ֣נָּה נָשִׁ֗ים וְנָ֨גְפ֜וּ אִ֤ישׁ בַּֽאֲשָׁכָיו֙ וְיָצָ֣א זַרְע֔וֹ וְלֹ֥א יִֽהְיֶ֖ה אָס֑וֹן עָנ֣וֹשׁ תֵּֽעָנֵ֗שׁ כַּֽאֲשֶׁ֨ר תָּשִׁ֤ית עָלֶ֙יהָ֙ בַּֽעֲלַ֣ת הָאִ֔ישׁ וְנָֽתְנָ֖ה בִּפְלִלִֽים׃

כג וְאִם־אָס֖וֹן יִֽהְיֶ֑ה וְנָתַ֥תְּ נֶ֖פֶשׁ תַּ֥חַת נָֽפֶשׁ׃

כד עַ֚יִן תַּ֣חַת עַ֔יִן שֵׁ֖ן תַּ֣חַת שֵׁ֑ן יָ֚ד תַּ֣חַת יָ֔ד רֶ֖גֶל תַּ֥חַת רָֽגֶל׃

כה כְּוִיָּה֙ תַּ֣חַת כְּוִיָּ֔ה פֶּ֖צַע תַּ֣חַת פָּ֑צַע חַבּוּרָ֕ה תַּ֖חַת חַבּוּרָֽה׃ (ס)

20. And should a woman strike her servantess or her handservant with a rod, and she dies under her hand, avenged, she shall be avenged.
21. But if the victim survives a day or two, this is not to be avenged, since the one is the other’s property.
22. And should women fight and they hit a man in his testicles and his semen escapes, and no other harm follows, the one responsible will be punished as the man’s owner will exact and the payment will be based on reckoning.
23. But if harm follows, then you must take life for life,
24. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
25. Burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

Exodus from Exodus – Mishpacha*

Source of Strength and Unity,

Let us know ourselves as one people.

Let us join in the creation of the world that is and sing the songs of liberation.

May there be a day when after transgressions, people are helped to find their way home to themselves.

My eye with your eye, my hand with your hand, my foot with your foot

Together we heal the burns and bruises,

Let us lift up the ways of the Divine.

Let us keep each other from open pits, watch each other’s oxen and share grazing land.

Let us put out each other’s fires.

And let us lie only with those people for whom we feel passion and ardor.

Let us connect to ourselves, to nature, and let us be people who walk the paths of magic and delight.

Let us sing incantations of leisure, healing, and hopefulness which all our community will join in and we will truly know ourselves as one people.

Let us open our arms to strangers, for we once were strangers.

Let us help them find their ways and places among us.

Let us know ourselves as one people.

Let us be holy people to each other.

As we stand in the fields and at our doors and on our roads, let us be open.

As we stand, so we breathe,

As we breathe so we share,

As we share so we love,

And together we heal.

Together we thrive

Source of Oneness, together we weave this new world.

Ken Teheye Ritzona/May it be Her Will

*One feature of Hebrew, לשון הקודש, lashon hakodesh, the holy tongue, is that words sharing a core of letters are connected.  Changing just one letter, the ט, tet, for a ח, chet, and adding the feminine ending, ה, hei, we transform משפט, mishpat to משפחה, mishpacha, family. (Rabbi Zeitlin)

McKenzie (Ma’ayan Yehudit) Wren is a ritualist who supports connection and growth through Earth-based, embodied practices uplifting the Divine Feminine. Whether facilitating art experiences, ritual or ceremony, workshops or classes, McKenzie creates a space where each person is seen, heard and valued and has an authentic meaningful experience.

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