Shabbat, Chronic Illness, & Radical Rest
“I have seen Jewish wisdom anchor chronically ill and disabled people amidst a society that is built, in many ways, to exclude us.”
Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
“I have seen Jewish wisdom anchor chronically ill and disabled people amidst a society that is built, in many ways, to exclude us.”
“I once wept outside / a Domino’s in Jerusalem while the buses didn’t run, / parted ways with the child who grew up believing / that somewhere home was waiting for her.”
“Even if we somehow managed to get every member back into that living room in Edinburgh, singing the same songs, it will never feel the same. We will no longer have those same strings of connection, varying in strength but never tenderness, weaving between us.”
“Formless and void, tohu v’vohu is the swirling celestial wilderness, before divinity started forming creation. It feels cosmically significant that we have been brought here, now.”
“Let us dance, feel, celebrate the rarity of this fleeting life before we return to stardust in the cosmos / Let us usher our descendants in for a good time.”
“With this siddur addition, LGBTQ+ young adult Jews get to truly share their voices in religious life.”
“It felt so good to not have to pretend everything is fine. To be able to mourn, to bawl in the presence of community without apologizing for the snot and the sound.”
“The fact that every natural wonder, from the sight of a rainbow to the smell of a spice, is given a brachah – the fact we are commanded to notice the world for what it is and what it offers – is such an awesome thing.”
In 5815, ten unconnected Jews in disparate locations will have concurrent experiences of arriving at gan eden.
One of the oldest Jewish prayers takes on a new unified meaning early in the morning, with Women Of The Wall
“When you pray the Lakota way, do you feel like you’re praying to the same God?”
“The mountains, on the other hand, they weren’t afraid. They got up and did a little dance, like muscular rams hopping from rock to rock.”
In this excerpt from a collaborative High Holidays reader entitled “Our Still Small Voice”, Raffi Levi brings Jewish spiritual wisdom on enoughness and healing for readers looking to set an intention for the whirlwind Days of Awe.
In a day and age of DIY Judaism and Jewish innovation, Syd’s Queer Jewish music is modern revelation: a Jewish practice that draws from tradition and is refreshed with new melodies and media. New Voices has a conversation with Syd to talk about composition, spirituality, queer identity, and creativity in a time of quarantine.
When trying to make sense of the suffering and violence taking place in Aleppo and Syria at large, I have recently turned to Jewish prayers to provide me with the necessary structure to process the tragedy and aid those who are suffering. I grew up unable to conceptualize how prayer could be a source of…