Ekev: Bread, Spirit and Hard Times

August 19, 2011 Irwin Keller

So when you count what you have, what sustains you, what arms you against the trouble, you must count more than your bread. More than your money. More than your limbs. You must count all your resources - your humor, your smarts, your compassion. Your love of music or prayer or study. Your love of that smell of fennel in West County or the deep rumble of your cat's purr.

Parashat Pinchas - Disillusionment and Demand

July 15, 2011 Irwin Keller

The truth is, there is nothing as disillusioning as a trip to Israel. When I return home, it takes months — no, years — for my romanticism to re-accrete on the skin of my sense of Israel. Like many Americans, like many Jews, I go to Israel seeking. Not seeking anything specific, but seeking some validation of who I am as a Jew.

Parashat Balak - a Tale of Two Cities

July 8, 2011 Irwin Keller

Shabbat is drawing close and I am in Tel Aviv, a concrete and steel-sheathed modern city offering a nearly Viennese gemütlichkeit to its population. Cafés and boutiques abound; you have to look hard now to notice the stone memorials listing the names of coffee-sippers of ten or fifteen years ago, blown up with the cafés that hosted them. In the years since, the people of Tel Aviv have persevered. They've endured explosions and sealed rooms and assassinations. A slice of cake and a cappuccino is, for them, not devoid of a certain defiance.

"Rachav, Rachav" - Prostitute, Proselyte, Prophet

June 18, 2011 Irwin Keller

One midrash says that Rachav was so completely alluring that a man need only say her name twice - Rachav, Rachav - and he will ejaculate. Rabbi Nachman objects that he said her name twice and that it didn't happen. Rabbi Yitzchak responds that the phenomenon only applies to those who had actually ever seen her face to face, which was undoubtedly politer than saying, "What are you? Gay?"

Parashat Shlach Lecha - "Born this Way"

June 12, 2011 Irwin Keller

Besides feeling apologetic, the "born this way" rhetoric also felt to me to be simply untrue. Too restrictive. Too static. And under-appreciative of who we are. Yes, we might have been born that way but we didn't stop there. We might have begun with our particular genes and hormones and whatever else goes into the human cocktail, but we've all kept adding and shaking and stirring. And what we've each concocted with our raw ingredients is nothing short of brilliant and brave and, to my mind, holy.