In the winter of 2018, I was sitting with my weekly “spirituality and recovery group” at the Exodus Transitional Community, a center for people recently released from prison. As their chaplain, I was tasked with caring for the spiritual needs of these people who were trying to rebuild their lives after years or even decades […]
I’m finding that many of my email exchanges are ending with sign-off’s like, “I hope you’re still breathing.” “Sending you breath.” Sending you breath. These words are well intentioned, of course– I’ve written them myself. And there’s something that twists in me when I see these words. ”Keep breathing.” Something we’re all too conscious of right […]
A few weeks ago, seventeen of our Mishkan community members, including members of our staff and our rabbis, took part in the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs’ racial justice training for Chicago-area congregations on a rainy Sunday, over Zoom (like all things nowadays). As a spiritual community, we had already gathered a small group back […]
By: Rabbi Jessica Lott This week we begin to read the book of Bamidbar, the 4th book of the Torah, which, in English, is called Numbers. This is because the first instruction God gives is for Moses and Aaron to conduct a census. The Israelites have come to the point in their wanderings in the […]
As conversations begin to turn to what ‘opening things up’ will look like in the weeks and months to come, I find myself with a new anxiety around the question: “Have we learned our lesson yet, being in this little ‘time-out’ indoors? And not even in a punitive way, I’m thinking of the term yeshiva, […]
Michael and Doug’s wedding in March. The first of many joyful occasions through Zoom that enabled hundreds of people to celebrate together virtually. To watch Friday Night’s Shabbat Service, click here. One of the really hard parts of being a rabbi right now is witnessing the disappointment of the kids who had big plans, many […]
Earlier this week, in our morning minyan, Ilana Rossoff shared a very short poem by June Jordan that has been on my mind this whole week. It goes like this: There is no chance that we will fall apart. There is no chance. There are no parts. At this moment, it feels like everything is […]
With a lot of love, we will say farewell to both Rabbi Lauren Henderson and Rabbi Jeff Stombaugh in mid-June. Rabbi Lauren recently accepted the position of Senior Rabbi at Or Hadash in Atlanta. Rabbi Jeff’s two-year Jewish Emergent Network Fellowship is coming to an end, and he has recently accepted the role of Rabbi/Executive Director at […]
You might remember the story of Hanukkah in Billings, Montana in 1993. Years of anti-Semitic rhetoric, pamphlets, and talk from the local Ku Klux Klan chapter culminated in someone throwing a cinderblock through a Hanukkah-decorated window of a 5 year old Jewish child. There were about 50 Jewish families in this town of 80,000 mostly-white, […]
When I was in college and really starting to explore my Judaism and where I came from, I once asked my Dad, “How did your Southern, Christian family first react when they found out you were engaged to a Jewish woman from New Jersey?” And he told me this story: It turns out that my […]