Many in the latest generation of women rabbis don’t think of themselves as feminists. For them, being a rabbi is a birthright; they grew up with women rabbis. They have little sense of what it took to get to this point.
The stages of a life are measured differently now from the days of Pirke Avot, a classical Jewish text from the second century.
For the past five weeks, the entire Jewish community has been counting … counting the days between Passover and Shavuot, the anniversary of the day we received Torah.
Last weekend, as I listened to the reading of the Purim Megillah, I was struck by its theme of reversals.
I just returned from a four-day alumni retreat for rabbis and cantors who had taken part in an Institute for Jewish Spirituality program designed to deepen our own spiritual commitments.
Maybe it is thinking about the New Year that brings up the subject. Or maybe because the holiday season is a time when families come together and talk. For whatever reason, within the last few week s NPR did a story on “The Conversation Project,” and the LA Times had an Opinion piece on “The Conversation.” You know what I mean—that difficult conversation about what we want at the end of our life.
This week’s Torah portion begins: “YHVH appeared to Abraham as he was sitting at the entrance of the tent … looking up, he saw: behold, three men standing opposite him.
Tradition tells us that the Gates of Repentance stay open until the end of Sukkot. The intensity of Yom Kippur has diminished, but we still remember the hours together, knocking on our hearts, trying to do spiritual CPR, to wake us up to the truth of our lives.
The conversation is supposed to begin like this: “Will you forgive me for anything I might have said or done this year that has hurt you?”
I was in college when I first heard the Beatles sing “When I’m Sixty-four.” The idea of getting older, losing my hair or wondering whether my partner would still need me was not my concern. But now, with Paul McCartney over 70, and me just one year away from 64, it’s a different story.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.