I am the daughter of a heterosexual White Christian couple from Tennessee. I am the granddaughter of many generations of southern families. I am unclear if any of my family ever owned slaves, but I won’t rule it out. I was raised in the church, but in reflecting upon everything I learned as a child, it was not the church that taught me how to be a good person – it was my mother and my grandmothers.
Continue reading “My Faith Today”
i’m not allowed to study
the kabbalah ‘til I’m forty years old
but I take sneak peeks
(i never do as I’m told)
but that’s a lie!
i’m not jewish & I wouldn’t
understand kabbalah anyway
Continue reading “Lies about Kabbalah (a poem)”
The year 2020 has been a strange year, and so has the Jewish year of 5780.
As the sun sets tonight, we hope and pray for a better year.
What will 5781 bring us? Do we dare to dream of health and happiness?
Or shall we begin to brace ourselves for a long, hard winter?
It is our hope which will sustain us, and we pray for a better year.
5781 brings us hope, and another step closer to coming back together.
I’m always reading heavy and serious books like Kafka, the classics, or dystopian science fiction. So I decided recently to read something a little more light-hearted for a change of pace.
The book I picked up was from Rachel’s shelf – The Golem and the Jinni, a 2013 debut novel from Helene Wecker. The novel still has some serious themes, but it wasn’t the type of angsty existentialism I usually dig into.
Continue reading “Book Review: The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker”
Being a Southern woman, making food is a part of your soul. It’s in our blood, it’s part of our spirit. It’s just what we do – we cook when we’re happy, when we’re expecting guests, when we’re down, or during a pandemic.
Continue reading “Cooking is a Part of My Soul: Challah French Toast”
I knew nothing of Shabbat before you
or the prayers we say on Friday nights
as we break off pieces of challah + let the candle
burn all night by the window –
I’m happy you’ve taught me, it’s brought me
a new ritual in this life, the life we share together.
(Photo source: shutterstock.com)
We can soldier through these dark hours if we hold on to faith + meaning –
the government tweeted antisemitism last night, the paranoia set in
we covered the webcam, spoke in whispers
debated if it was intentional
I thought of Viktor Frankl + man’s search for meaning –
humans can exact great suffering on each other,
but they can never take our souls.
(Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash)
If you were raised religious, you might know “Eshet Chayil.” Maybe you don’t know it by that name, but you know it by its translation: “A Woman of Valor,” which can be found in Proverbs 31:10-31.
Continue reading “Eshet Chayil”
