Amy Stone
The matzahs are gone; the ongoing question remains: Has anyone found a satisfying haggadah? For the past two years, we’ve used the slim paperback egalitarian “Family Haggadah” by Elie M.… Read more »
The Haggadah Dilemma
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Recession in a failing religious system
Modesty Blasé
In my real life, I am about to lose my job. Furious networking and frantic emailing have left me little time to write anything other than job applications and embellishments… Read more »
No Good Angle
Mel Weiss
You know how sometimes a news story shows up that’s kind of like a car wreck, no matter how you look at it? So amazingly yuck that even bloggers who… Read more »
Why is This Night Different?
Maya Bernstein
The purpose of the Seder is to tell stories. Not just any stories, but our stories – the stories of our people, of our families, and our own deepest stories. And not just to anyone – but to our children, those, perhaps, before whom it is most difficult to expose ourselves.
Jewish Women's Writing Groups
admin
Have you seen the spring issue’s article on Jewish women’s writing groups? (You can even download the article from our homepage!) Well, in the spirit of that article, we want… Read more »
Pesach dead hand of the past
Amy Stone
(April 8, 2009) I am fuming. I was just in West Side Judaica (Manhattan’s Upper West Side) where a little boy was saying to his grandparents, “We need a Miriam’s… Read more »
What’s For Dinner?
Maya Bernstein
The baby’s got a new trick. She can turn her hands into wind-shield wipers. When it’s time for breakfast, I drop her into her high-chair and dump some cheerios and… Read more »
In Motion
Maya Bernstein
The baby learned to walk – ah! The freedom of it! Tentative steps for a month, and then, seemingly suddenly, the determination palpable, the joy uncontainable, the falls inevitable, she… Read more »
A Parent's Job Description
Maya Bernstein
My mother-in-law forwarded me an email with this description of a Parent’s Job Description. I haven’t been able to find the author–-though multiple links come up when you Google “Parents… Read more »
Friending
Maya Bernstein
A friend of mine was visiting from out of town for a conference recently, and a group of her women friends gathered to see her. We ordered in pizza, and… Read more »
Be a part of the story
Are you preparing for your Passover to look different this year?
What Haggadah inserts are you using? Will you have an orange on your Seder plate? An olive? A place setting for hostages?
Tell us in the comments.
Are you preparing for your Passover to look different this year?
What Haggadah inserts are you using? Will you have an orange on your Seder plate? An olive? A place setting for hostages?
Tell us in the comments.
We were having a lot of trouble getting into Passover this year. And then we saw @tirtzahbassel`s new painting, "Red Sea Parting," (23”x22”, gouache on paper, 2024.) Wish Miriam and her drummers could be our doulas, ushering us through this time.
***
@tirtzahbassel writes—Wound/Womb: A friend sent me an illumination from a medieval Haggadah that portrayed the Israelites emerging from the Red Sea through a vulva-shaped opening, and it made me think of the story of Exodus as a story of birthing.
After I gave birth to my son, I remember telling my friend that “giving birth is one thing you can’t think your way through”. Intellectual preparation or rationalization were so vastly inadequate to meet the intensity of this pain. There was no reasoning with it, only a dawning realization that the only way forward was through, that the most you can handle is one contraction at a time. You muster every ounce of psychic and physical power that you can command and count ten breaths because the doula said you can handle anything for ten breaths, and you have no choice but to believe her.
We often see our traumas as wounds, but can we see them as wombs? Could the blinding pain be a contraction that we cannot conceptualize, but can move through breath by breath, knowing it is not a mark of victimhood but an ability to birth new life?
We were having a lot of trouble getting into Passover this year. And then we saw @tirtzahbassel`s new painting, "Red Sea Parting," (23”x22”, gouache on paper, 2024.) Wish Miriam and her drummers could be our doulas, ushering us through this time.
***
@tirtzahbassel writes—Wound/Womb: A friend sent me an illumination from a medieval Haggadah that portrayed the Israelites emerging from the Red Sea through a vulva-shaped opening, and it made me think of the story of Exodus as a story of birthing.
After I gave birth to my son, I remember telling my friend that “giving birth is one thing you can’t think your way through”. Intellectual preparation or rationalization were so vastly inadequate to meet the intensity of this pain. There was no reasoning with it, only a dawning realization that the only way forward was through, that the most you can handle is one contraction at a time. You muster every ounce of psychic and physical power that you can command and count ten breaths because the doula said you can handle anything for ten breaths, and you have no choice but to believe her.
We often see our traumas as wounds, but can we see them as wombs? Could the blinding pain be a contraction that we cannot conceptualize, but can move through breath by breath, knowing it is not a mark of victimhood but an ability to birth new life?
We lost one of the greats— visionary artist (and beloved children`s book author) Faith Ringgold. May her memory be a blessing. Passover is the perfect time to lift up her midrash (telling/interpretation) of an exodus story with "Here Comes Moses" (2014).
The writing around the edge reads:
Aunt Emmy said he`d find us one day.
That boy came North to freedom in a storm.
He lost his mother and father on the way.
"They`ll never find me in this storm, but we will all find Freedom, God willing.
We were born to be free, I will never give up," said Moses.
Moses was only twelve years old when he came to Jones Road on Thanksgiving Day in 1793.
We lost one of the greats— visionary artist (and beloved children`s book author) Faith Ringgold. May her memory be a blessing. Passover is the perfect time to lift up her midrash (telling/interpretation) of an exodus story with "Here Comes Moses" (2014).
The writing around the edge reads:
Aunt Emmy said he`d find us one day.
That boy came North to freedom in a storm.
He lost his mother and father on the way.
"They`ll never find me in this storm, but we will all find Freedom, God willing.
We were born to be free, I will never give up," said Moses.
Moses was only twelve years old when he came to Jones Road on Thanksgiving Day in 1793.
"I knew his seder was not just a tribute to his grandfather, an affirmation of his own history. It was a refutation of that feeling of not belonging. It was about his experience of being Jewish, saying out loud that being Jewish mattered. Who was I to insist on a place at the head of that table?"
Re-reading Jennifer Burleigh`s "A Place At the Table" as we stare down Pesach—linked in our bio.
Illustration by @sofinaydenova in Lilith`s Fall 2017 issue.
"I knew his seder was not just a tribute to his grandfather, an affirmation of his own history. It was a refutation of that feeling of not belonging. It was about his experience of being Jewish, saying out loud that being Jewish mattered. Who was I to insist on a place at the head of that table?"
Re-reading Jennifer Burleigh`s "A Place At the Table" as we stare down Pesach—linked in our bio.
Illustration by @sofinaydenova in Lilith`s Fall 2017 issue.
