During a Tahara, the Jewish ritual for sanctifying a body after death, we wash the body in a continuous stream of water, we engage in spacious silence, and we recite words which affirm the inherent goodness of every soul, every life an entire world.
We are three weeks into the most threatening time I have lived through as a Jew.
I am sitting shmira – / Guarding the memories of the dead / until they are returned / to their families embrace.
Do we use our pain to unleash violence and hatred onto others? Or do we use our pain as an instrument of compassion, to learn to recognize the pain in others?
Amidst the violence, in response to the violence, we quietly sprinkle the world with this tender presence, creating a mirco-climate of love.
A sermon excerpt from Rabbi Miriam Grossman: Today I need to keep my humanity. And today I need to keep going even without hope. Because hope will come one day.
Elana Sztokman: When horror and sadness at the attacks is accompanied by anger at the government.
A poem from Hila Ratzabi: The earth will hold you better Than God can.
A sermon excerpt from Rabbi Sharon Brous: After the atrocities in Israel on Simhat Torah, we must remember the healing power of community, and the importance of compassion, solidarity and showing up.
Excited to read “I Am You” by @victoriawriter and “The Mother: A Graphic Memoir” by @weirdmomart that just arrived in the Lilith office.
At Lilith Online, @ruthbeharauthor connects the inhumanity of today`s deportations with yesterday`s expulsions.
She writes, "In this vehemently anti-immigrant moment, as deportations continue, I remember my ancestors expelled from Spain over 500 years ago, an event so traumatic that the memory of how it hurt to be forced into homelessness is still vivid today.
I shudder to think how shocked they’d be to know that expulsions haven’t ended."
Read it at link in bio.
Our hope every morning when we wake up.
“I want to worry about boring things” by @madebyelliebklyn seen in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
In honor of National Honor Our LGBTQ+ Elders Day, we are revisiting a powerful piece from Lilith Online by Carmel Tanaka. Read "Caring For, and Learning From, Queer and Trans Elders" now at lilith.org — link in bio!
Image caption: Carmel Tanaka and her mother, Dalia Gottlieb-Tanaka, at a “Sharing Queer History” panel at the Museum of North Vancouver in 2023.
As we approach graduation season and prepare to say goodbye to our wonderful class of interns, we have milestones on our minds, both bitter and sweet ones. We have also been contemplating how Jewish tradition and ritual–or feminist twists on tradition and ritual–can guide and ground us during moments of change, struggle, and triumph.
Milestones mark our growth and progress through time. From classic milestones that tend to happen in spring and summer, like graduations and weddings, to more personal changes, tragedies and triumphs, like moving and surgery, Jewish feminists have turned to Lilith to shared their rituals and reflections. The pages of our magazine have become a place where we mark our personal and communal resilience.
📸: “Accompanying the Hasidic bride to the wedding canopy, Brooklyn, 1980s” by @joanrothphotography, published in Lilith’s Winter 2020-2021 Issue.
