Good Stuff

these are a few of my favorite things (right now)

So while we are having Funtime Experimental Weird Life Is A Sacred Text (which might be the thing for a moment, don’t fear, we’ll get back to Torah essays but in the meantime I’m going to try to not let the perfect be the enemy of the groovy, here) why don’t I do an occasional roundup of things that I think that you might dig if you are the kind of person who digs the stuff I write here? Or things that, at the very least, I am digging these days, or finding interesting or inspiring or provocative or something else?

Let’s go with the flow, shall we?

Other things you’d want to see in this space? Comment below!

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The first thing I want you to see is this piece by Dr. Ethan Schwartz on the prophet Isaiah, Frederick Douglass, and why “what happens in the house of worship [must be] inseparable from what happens in the streets.” With a detour through Pauline theology and the Jewish/Christian split, for funsies. It is brilliant and wonderful and I think nails Isaiah perfectly as well as, for me, the point of this religion business and I think many of you will enjoy getting a chance to see how Douglass is actually rewriting Isaiah for Americans who aren’t seeing their own racism. It is sizzling.

And if you’ve never spent time with Isaiah, it’s a nice place to start.

Your new moons and your appointed festivals
   my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me,
   I am weary of bearing them.
When you stretch out your hands,
   I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
   I will not listen;
   your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
   remove the evil of your doings
   from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
   learn to do good;
seek justice,
   rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
   plead for the widow.

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The beautiful, liberatory art of Ayeola Omolara Kaplan, an amazing Black, queer Jewish artist who, among other things, has this heroines of the Bible series that I die for. There are a lot of things I love about her work, but one of them is that they all have magical details and little extra surprises that you find when you look more closely. (IG here, prints here.)

Here’s Lilith, who we discussed early on.

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Here’s Esther, who got a conversation with Lilith and Eve and Vashti as a bit of an interlude:

And here’s her Bubblegum Judith. (Yes TECHNICALLY Judith is Extra-Biblical, but she’s ours anyway).

She also did this stunning piece for NCJW; proceeds to prints, mugs, and other merch help support the Jewish Fund for Abortion Justice (which in turn goes straight to support travel and abortion care for anyone who needs it through the National Abortion Federation. Link here.

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The poetry of Aurielle Marie, like “pantoum for aiyana & not a single hashtag” and “i saw in louisiana, that which these eyes can’t unsee”

That's the problem

with poems in the order of the natural:

the romantic will always give himself permission

to shift

              an auction block, back

        into a patch

of innocent moss.

You can buy her Lambda Literary Award-winning book of poems, Gumbo Ya-Ya, here.

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The sometimes playful, sometimes haunting, always arresting art of Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, who is also a historian of Eastern-European Jewry—and whose work, as below, echoes a lot of themes of Eastern European Jewish history. Here are a few samples; much more at his website.

Elephant in Berdichev, 2008 Berdichev is a city in northern Ukraine; Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev was a great 18th c. Hasidic leader.

Lot and His Wife, 2018.

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Back before her Nanette days, Hannah Gadsby did all sorts of cool things, including this two-part series on the body and the nude in art. It is of course grumpily feminist and queer and tries to be thoughtful about race and all that good stuff. Here’s part one, part two is also on the YouTubes.

Yes, there are lots of art things here, yes, art is great! Art! More art! We need art to fill us up and nourish us, especially as we are in deep and difficult times now. It can challenge us and mirror for us and open for us and help us and everything.

When I was in my very early 20s, just starting to get religious, I felt like there was this dilemma: I’d have an extraordinary moment—do I write a poem or do I say the blessing thanking God for keeping me alive to to this moment? (aka the Shehecheyanu).

As though it were binary. As though the Divine would demand that we choose. As though our hearts and souls weren’t big enough for all of it. As though the good stuff is binary! The prophets wrote poetry. They also wrote social justice commentary. So much of what’s here on this list, as I think about it—truly, a random list of things I dig now—is prayer and is justice commentary, is religion and art and justice all as one, because these things so often are.

Let art nourish you when your heart hurts about the injustice in the world. Let art propel you to activism. Do activism and then make art about it. Pray the art. Activism is prayer. Everything is interconnected. Including all of this.

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And yes, I’m gearing up for the release of ON REPENTANCE AND REPAIR! It comes out in a little over a month—this is your time to get in on it.

Preorder here!!

Get a copy for yourself, for that family member, the key player at the institution you’re hoping will do the right thing, for your clergy member, for everyone you’re hoping will learn to show up and help create a world with more wholeness in it.

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Thanks to you all and I’m glad you’re here with me. Go read, listen to, or look at some art. xo