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The time we are in now is a time to ask: are we so determined to undo God’s rainbow covenant? Will we truly burn the sea, chemically and literally, with the oil we unleash from inside the Earth? Will we flood the sea with death as the land was flooded according to the Noah story of so long ago? As the cleanup continues and the effects will continue for decades, what new floods will we unleash in the coming years? . . . → Read More: יום קשת מ״ב בעומר | The 42nd Day of the Omer is Rainbow Day 
Psalm 67 is a priestly blessing for all the peoples of the earth to be sustained by the earth’s harvest (yevulah), and it is a petition that all humanity recognize the divine nature (Elohim) illuminating the world. Composed of seven verses, the psalm is often visually depicted as a seven branched menorah. There are 49 words in the entire psalm, and in the Nusaḥ ha-ARI z”l there is one word for each day of the Sefirat haOmer. Similarly, the fifth verse has 49 letters and each letter can be used as a focal point for meditating on the meaning of the day in its week in the journey to Shavuot, the festival of weeks (the culmination of the barley harvest), and the festival of oaths (shevuot) in celebration of receiving the Torah. Many of the themes of Psalm 67 are repeated in the prayer Ana b’Koaḥ, which also has 49 words, and which are also used to focus on the meaning of each day on the cyclical and labyrinthine journey towards Shavuot. . . . → Read More: Scaling the Walls of the Labyrinth: Psalms 67 and Ana b’Koaḥ 
In honor of Pesaḥ this year, I’ve transcribed “The Ritual of the Seder and the Agada of the English Jews before the Expulsion” by Dr. Dávid Kaufmann (1852-1899) which first appeared in The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Jul., 1892), pp. 550-561. In the article, Kaufmann describes an English Haggadah contained in an . . . → Read More: The Ritual of the Seder and the Agada of the English Jews Before the Expulsion. Given that one important aspiration of the Open Siddur Project is the development of a web application for anyone to edit, maintain, and share the content of a personal prayerbook that they can craft online, I’m very concerned at how well web browsers today display the Hebrew language with all of its diacritical (vowels, cantillation) . . . → Read More: Testing Web browsers as Platforms for Hebrew Text Publishing 
Nomi Lerman and I were co-teacher’s this past season at Kolot Ḥayeinu’s religious school in Park Slope Brooklyn this past season, and as a Ḥanukah present we made a Ḥanukah Madrikh for our Kittah Gimmel class. I’m certain there are Jewish educators all over the world preparing curricular resources for Ḥanukah right about now and hope that by sharing this they can take it and improve on it, or else we’ll save them some energy so they’ll be able to do even more mitzvot. . . . → Read More: Nomi and Aharon’s Ḥanukah Madrikh! Peas on Earth (everybody now) Peas on Earth — you’ve got to Grab a fork and lettuce work For Peas on Earth Come animals and pea-ple, each and every one Let’s start a revolution, powered by the sun Bees and worms and unicorns, every human bean We’ll sow the seeds of happiness and plant . . . → Read More: Peas on Earth (from the Teva educators Fall 2010) 
In 2010 while beginning to prepare resources for Tu Bishvat, I stumbled across a fascinating project over on Wikisource — the Open Breslov Project — a project for creating free digital translations into English of the work of Rebbe Naḥman of Breslov, the work of his student, Reb Natan of Nemirov, and a few others. Closely related to the Open Siddur Project is an effort at Hebrew Wikisource to create free digital editions of all the texts of Breslov Ḥasidut in Hebrew. . . . → Read More: Likutei Tefillot and The Open Breslov Project 
Once upon a time when the Temple still stood, the Rosh Hashanah Livheima celebrated one means by which we elevated and esteemed the special creatures that helped us to live and to work. Just as rabbinic Judaism found new ways to realize our Temple offerings with tefillot — prayers — so too the Rosh Hashanah Livheima challenges us to realize the holiness of the animals in our care in a time without tithes. The New Years Day for Animals is a challenge to remind and rediscover what our responsibilities are to the animals who depend on us for their welfare. Are we treating them correctly and in accord with the mitzvah of tza’ar baalei chayim — sensitivity to the suffering of living creatures? Have we studied and understood the depth of ḥesed — lovingkindness — expressed in the breadth of our ancestors teachings concerning the welfare of animals in Torah? Rosh Hashanah Livheima is the day to reflect on our immediate or mediated relationships with domesticated animals, recognize our personal responsibilities to them, individually and as part of a distinct and holy people, and repair our relationships to the best of our ability. . . . → Read More: ראש השנה לבהמה: explanation and ritual for Rosh Hashanah Livheima (New Years Day for Animals) 
Stunden Der Andacht, Fanny Neuda (nèe Schmeidl)’s popular collection of prayers written in German and published in Prague in 1855 was already in its fifth printing a decade later when Rabbi Moritz Mayer published his English translation, Hours of Devotion (1866) in New York. Neuda’s collection of Jewish prayers is unique by virtue of its being possibly the first to authored by a Jewish woman. Earlier collections of tkhinos — petitionary prayers, comprising a growing literature of devotional works for prayer outside of the shul were authored by Jewish men. . . . → Read More: An Abridged English Translation of Fanny Neuda’s Stunden Der Andacht by R’ Moritz Mayer (1866) 
Since the Jewish calendar is not affixed to the sun, but corrected by a leap year to its seasons, Tu B’Av does not normally fall on the summer solstice. And yet, the relationship between Tu B’Av and the zenith of the summer is alluded to in Rav Menashya’s statement regarding Tu B’Av, “From this day onwards, he who increases [his knowledge through study as the nights grow longer] will have his life prolonged.” . . . → Read More: Tu B’Av: sources for study and celebration on the 15th of Av |
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