August 26, 2022

Re'eh

Hello!

I'm gonna be skipping next week due to spending a few days in the woods, but I'll be back to send a Jewsletter out on September 9th.

Jewish Calendar

Parshat Re'eh

At the beginning of the parsha, we're told about a blessing and a curse. This is (part of) the basis Maimonides uses in arguing for free will rather than determinism in his Mishna Torah: we are able to choose whether to follow the commandments and pursue the blessing, or go against them and be cursed.

There's quite a bit about community support in re'eh too, whether that's supporting the levites who don't have the benefit of intergenerational wealth transfer or covering for the poor in general; but idolators and the non-jews living in the holy land are, you know, to be killed and dispossessed so the israelites can take up the land they've been promised. This all makes sense if we take the perspective of the times in which they were first written down: how do we keep this group together, rather than having them dissolve into their neighboring cultures? how do we keep our own poor from falling through the cracks?

My moral intuition (svara), though, says: supporting the poor should not be bounded by whether someone is jewish. I stewed in this for a while, and thought about writing something of a screed, or maybe something digging into the community support aspects of the levites specifically. But then I kept reading and found: Maimonides agrees with me here too.

To Maimonides, the 15:11 mitzvah to open our hands to the poor applies to any person we have any relationship with. He looks to Dvarim 23:8, which isn't in this week's parsha but is two weeks out in Ki Teitzei, and confirms: we should support anyone needy we're in relationship with, whether they're jewish or not, as in our siblings the Edomites, and whether the relationship is positive or negative, including those who oppressed us in Mitzrayim. (Disclaimer: this is all Maimonides filtered through wikipedia's page about re'eh. I have not yet dug into his works more directly, though I hope to one of these days.)

The torah says so many things. I don't think I'm ever going to be done studying it and learning from it, and learning from those who have learned from it; even when my impulse is: no, this is wrong; there are people before who have agreed with me and said: ah, but if you look here, it means something else too.

Elul!

This weekend we have rosh chodesh elul, also known as rosh hashana habehemah or the new year for the animals. Don't forget to RSVP for TransHallel Rosh Chodesh Elul this Sunday!

Rabbi Jordan Braunig will be doing his emailed daily spiritual prompts again, this time in partnership with Jewish Studio Project. Check out their other elul programming too, or Judaism Unbound's Elul Unbound. Rabbi Emily Cohen is also doing daily introspection prompts on instagram, or there's always emailed inspirational quotes from Jewels of Elul.

It's Sephardic tradition to recite Selichot daily during Elul, and Windy Meadow Homestead is hosting online creative selichot services daily this year.

For elul learning, check out the classes and events at the end of the email, and don't forget to get your calendar for next (jewish) year!

Jews Behaving Badly

We're all tired of hearing about transphobia, especially trans people. And I assume people subscribing to this newsletter are not the type to listen to Bari Weiss or Libs of Tiktok. But every time one of Our People is bigoted against something I am, it hurts in a fresh way, and Weiss' audience contains a lot more regular people than Libs of Tiktok, and I just want to gently point out--once again--that she is full of shit and you should not listen to her.

Books and Language

I will click on literally anything titled Archival Mystery Storytime. Especially if it's jewish, and involves one or more people i like and respect (like, say, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, or Fred Macdowell), and this is all of the above! Very old jewish music notation: cool stuff, even before you get to the big feelings storytelling part.

a thread on the psalms, amulets, and magic!

Miscellaneous

I don't usually put personal fundraising links in here, but trans jewish septuagenarian Rachel Pollack (yes, the Doom Patrol author and tarot person) is in the ICU and fundraising for medical expenses. See if you can throw her a couple dollars.

There's plenty of hypocrisy in the world but a hostile architecture bench with "love your neighbor as yourself" written on it may be a new low.

Events and classes

As always, bolded means it's newly added.

classes

The Synagogues of Greece: A three part series exploring the history, culture, and architecture of Sephardic & Romaniote synagogues of Greece with scholar and architect Elias Messinas from Sephardic Brotherhood. 9/1, 9/8, 9/15 (free, zoom lectures)

Reparations & Indigenous Land Back Teshuvah with Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb of JeLiThin, September 5, 12, and 19

Judaism Unbound's UnYeshiva has five mini classes this September and they all look great, as usual. I am taking the one about Jacob Frank, but there's no bad choices here.

SVARA has an Elul Chevruta Lovefest from August 30th - September 20th.

Returning to the Beloved - Mindfulness Meditation as Spiritual Practice from Hinenu, Sundays 10-11:30am EST on Zoom, Aug. 28 - Sep 18, 2022

Disability Justice as Spiritual Text - Allies Edition! SVARA's Disability Justice Torah Circle has this class from time to time for disabled/chronically ill people only, but this time it's for everyone.

Hadar also has a number of Elul classes covering topics like Rebbe Nachman on teshuva, and learning the yom kippur machzor in a series of 15 minute sessions.

Events

8/28 TransHallel Rosh Chodesh Elul in memory of Lea Andersen

8/28 A Time to Embrace-Songs of Comfort & Hope from Ramon Tasat

8/28 Nonbinary Elul Well Circle

8/25 Creative Rest: Queer Disability Joy from Julia Watts Belser and the Jewish Studio Project

8/27 Rosh Chodesh Elul (sephardim begin saying selichot)

8/29 Book Talk: The Sephardic Way in Death and Mourning with Rabbi Yamin Levy

8/29 Queer Nigun Project Elul Virtual Circle (register here)

9/8 On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World book launch event with Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg ft. Rebecca Solnit

9/11 From Rachel and David to Maya and Ezra: Trends in American Jewish Personal Names

9/15 The House of Memory: Jewish Stories from Jewish Women of Latin America, with Marjorie Agosin

9/18 Iraqi High Holiday Hits from Loolwa Khazoom

9/26 Rosh Hashana

Jewish Pet of the Week

The Jewish Pet of the Week is Cleo!

<3

Meli