Kol Haneshamah - Every Living Thing

December 11, 2010 Irwin Keller

Something new and beautiful from Ner Shalom. Lorenzo Valensi's new setting of Kol Haneshamah - the final verse of the book of Psalms.

כל הנשמה תהלל יה הללויה
Kol haneshamah tehalel Yah. Haleluyah.

Let every living thing praise Yah. Hallelujah.

It's a fast recording we threw down on Garageband, and a fast video from iMovie. But rough production values aside, I think it's a thing of beauty. Enjoy.

Forgiving the Painful Past: A Queer Read of Joseph

December 3, 2010 Irwin Keller

The rabbis sit uncomfortably with who Joseph is. They make special mention in Midrash of his curling his hair and painting his eyes in the Egyptian style. To an Egyptian this would be innocuous, but to the rabbis it certainly had a whiff of gender transgression to it. Maybe gender was the readiest hook upon which to hang their overall anxiety with who Joseph was.

Idealist * Muddler * Angel

November 24, 2010 Irwin Keller

This is an odd side story in Torah. The plot doesn't require Joseph to go astray. But there's something here that adds both suspense and a sense of destiny. But for running into the stranger, the day would have unfolded differently, and so might our history.

Unravelling Regret

September 19, 2010 Irwin Keller

My uncle, always easily identifiable as Jewish, sometimes picked on for it, always proud of it, was not an observant man. I don't know if he ever said the shema outside of a synagogue. Or inside one for that matter. So instead of offering an explicitly religious practice, I simply asked him, "Do you think it might be time to let go of these grudges, Uncle Marv? Maybe you can forgive these people. Maybe they were only doing their best." His response, though startling, had the honesty of someone without much time left. "No," he replied, "never."

Attuning to Love

September 10, 2010 Irwin Keller

After all, isn't that what these holy days are about? Judgment? The judgment language is everywhere in the liturgy. We are asked to look inside and take stock, in a process called cheshbon hanefesh - the accounting of the soul. It's hard and it doesn't always feel good. In fact, I had one friend tell me that she wouldn't be attending Yom Kippur at her synagogue this year because she's tired of being asked to feel bad.