Families, Holy and... there is no other kind: A Jewish Ayahuasca Journey

By Matt Nussman

I saw, behind my father, his father, and his father, and his. I saw, behind him and to his left, his mother, and her parents, and hers. Stretching backward in time, I saw generations of my ancestors, not in any particular detail, but like a phalanx of men and women supporting me and holding me. And then, above and behind my father, I had a vision of something that felt like the God of our ancestors, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

Shever v'Tikkun/Shattering and Repair: Lessons from the Journey of Aging

By Rabbi Dayle Friedman

In the journey of aging, shatterings are rampant, inevitable, and recurrent. We will all face them.

Lepers and Me

By Elliot Kukla

I chose to work as a chaplain in part because modern day leper colonies, the homes of those who are most estranged, are the places where God speaks to me the strongest. As a gender-ambiguous transgender person, I identify with them.

What is the Purpose of Jewish Education?

By Maya Bernstein

The Jewish education our children receive should manifest itself in Jewishly-grounded ethical action. Interestingly, a very old method of Jewish learning – hevruta – can be a model for how this type of ethical education can proceed.

One Jewish Feminist’s Lifelong Companionship with a Misogynist

By S. Tamar Kamionkowski

It was 1999 and I was a visiting scholar at a synagogue in Florida teaching a workshop on Ezekiel. Midstream, I found myself saying words I had not anticipated saying to these suburban mainstream Jews: “Ezekiel 16, verse 17 is referring to a strap-on dildo and Ezekiel is referencing the emasculation of God by the collective body of Israel who is assuming the phallic, penetrative role in the divine-human relationship.” Gulp.

Marc Gafni Abuses Again -- and We Share Responsibility

By Dina Levada

I am raising my voice to my fellow Jews that we have been silent about this man for too long, and now our silence has led to yet more abuse. In this season of repentance, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

Call Jewish Fundamentalism What It Is

Why, when it comes to Jewish Fundamentalists, are we afraid to use the term, and tend to think of Hasidim as cuddly-cute characters from Fiddler on the Roof or The Chosen?

Speaking of Goddess: Finding the Sacred Feminine in the Song of Songs

By Rabbi Julia Watts-Belser

The past forty years of Jewish feminist thought and theology have seen powerful analysis and fruitful conversations about the Divine, the feminine, and the power of the language we use to evoke and invoke the Holy in our lives. Yet to speak of Goddess in a Jewish context is still often to speak in a whisper.

An Orthodox Jewish Case for Marriage Equality

By Rabbi Steven Greenberg

Now that there are churches and synagogues that perform and hold sacred same-sex vows, the state cannot choose to reject these marriages any more than it can reject marriages that I, as an Orthodox rabbi, would not perform because one partner is a Jew and another a Christian.

Is Post-Rapture Looting Permitted on Shabbos?

Halachic advice for potential left-behinds in case of global apocalypse.

Religion and Hybridity: Can someone be Jewish and Christian?

By David Levinsky

We can’t deny people what they have already taken for themselves: the ability to create identities that are satisfying and meaningful. American religious identities are fuzzy around the edges. The change is already here.

How the Jewish Prayer Service Resembles Pentecostal Worship

By Sharon Alexander

Most visitors to a mainstream Jewish prayer service would not typically describe what they witness as “ecstatic.” But the structure of the service has interesting parallels to Evangelical and charismatic services.

God of Contradiction: On Language and Liturgy

By Danya Ruttenberg

The time has come to stop thinking about language and God, lest we become so tangled up in our metaphors that they become our experience of God entirely.

Sarah and Moses: God’s Teachers of Compassion

By Or N. Rose

Or Rose argues for the continuing power of the rabbinic exegetical tradition in this reflection on R. Shapir (the Piaceszner) and the Holocaust.

New Teachings from Exodus: Berman & Waskow’s Freedom Journeys

By Rachel Barenblat

Egypt’s revolution should remind us of the Jewish “Passover” revolution there 3000 years ago. Freedom Journeys comes at just the right time.

In Defense of the Online Minyan

By Michael Sabani

The synagogue in ancient Alexandria, Egypt, was so large that they had to wave flags so that the people in the back knew when to answer “amen.” The online service is essentially the same thing.

In the Image: A Jewish Theology to Confront the Bullying Epidemic

By Margie Klein

We all know the problems of Leviticus 18 for LGBTQ Jews. Here, Margie Klein shows that Talmud provides a Jewish theology against homophobic bullying.

Queer and Practicing: Reclaiming the Lost Spiritual Path of Chutzpah

By Matthew Schultz

To find a place for LGBTQ Jews in Judaism, we must regain the chutzpah of our ancestors, the Talmudists who took seriously Deut 30:12, “the Law is not in Heaven”

“Straight-Welcoming?!” – Creating an Inclusive Community

By Joshua Lesser

Inclusivity runs both ways: how one LGBT shul became straight-welcoming