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Hi Tammy, it’s me. I hope I’m not catching you at a bad moment. I have some big news. It means a lot to me to share it with you.… Read more »
Not Pregnant
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Queering the Conversation
Mel Weiss
Brooklyn Pride was this past Saturday night. It was intermittently pouring, and both those of us watching and the soggy marchers got soaked and didn’t really care. I love the… Read more »
Introductions
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My name is Sarah Aronson and this is my first post on the Lilith blog. Thanks to Mel for inviting me! A quick bio: I am living the dream in… Read more »
Are Women Really Taking Over Judaism, And Is That So Bad?
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The general consensus on these questions appears to be Yes, women are taking over Judaism, and Yes, that is bad. But I’m having trouble working up concern over this supposedly… Read more »
Mr. Obama Goes to AIPAC
Mel Weiss
Shavuot was never a big-deal holiday in my family—it was pretty much the Festival of the Cheese Blintz. It’s only been in more recent years that I’ve learned about the… Read more »
Entry #1: Owning Our Processes
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06/07/08 The bus sighs and coughs to a halt. I awake startled from sleep on the overnight bus from Bangkok to Mae Sot, Thailand. We’re stopped on the side of… Read more »
And Speaking of Israeli Culture…
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One of the bands raising the temperature in Israel and making waves in America right now is Habanot Nechama, a group of three super-talented women, all of whom have careers… Read more »
Changing Times, Changing Minds
Mel Weiss
I was at the Strand bookstore when I found a forty-eight-cent copy of The Feminine Mystique. I’ll shamefully admit that the selfsame title heads a list entitled “Mel’s Summer Gotta… Read more »
Meditation on Turning Thirty
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Today is my thirtieth birthday, which falls out each year during the period in which it is traditional to learn Pirkei Avot, the tractate of the Mishnah that contains many… Read more »
Appease This
Mel Weiss
As regular readers of this blog may know, I tend to take the news a little personally. So steam was pretty much coming out of my ears this past week,… 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.
