Virtual Shabbat Box Archives: March 2024
March 1-2
Poet Darcy Graberstein describes how a billboard on a New Jersey highway brought emotions to the surface regarding October 7 and the hostages remaining in Gaza. And she provides a writing prompt: How are you filling your void, right now?
Here’s a song and a prayer that’s both a call for justice and a desperate longing to bring the hostages home.
Rabbi Nancy Fuchs Kreimer shares how making mistakes taught her valuable lessons in interfaith solidarity work.
Rabbi Elyse Wechterman discusses the first 50 years of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association and the challenges of being a rabbi after October 7.
March 8-9
What started as a sermon about the stigma of mental illness grew into a mental health task force fostering wellness, serving as an example of how Reconstructionist Judaism works in practice. (Scroll to the bottom of the page at the link to watch the video.)
Commissioned in honor of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association’s 50th anniversary, this collection of seven essays by clergy explores the rabbinate’s history, challenges and opportunities.
Writer Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer shares a poem and writing prompt that invites us to process loss and appreciate the presence of those who anchor our lives.
Rabbi Alex Weissman examines an episode from Talmud and what it says about our tradition’s complicated relationship with both misogyny and female empowerment.
March 15-16
We’re told that God doesn’t appear in the Book of Esther. But what if the Shekhinah — the kabbalistic, feminine presence of the divine — is embodied in Esther herself?
Spice up your Purim with two Iraqi Jewish deserts: savory Sambusak and sweet B’ab’a B’tamer.
Rabbi Isabel de Konick addresses the loneliness epidemic and shares her rabbinate’s central purpose: to help people find connection and meaning.
Learn how rabbis can turn political conversations into pastoral moments, console suffering and ensure their communities are spaces of deep meaning — especially in wartime.
March 22-23
Rabbi Seth Goldstein’s latest video gets us in the mindset for Purim, carries a poignant message and aims for a few laughs.
Think you know Purim? If you haven’t experienced the festive meal, you’ve missed half the zaniness and insight.
This stunning artwork and prose poem imagines what Vashti might have said to King Ahasuerus from the beyond the grave, a message with eerie resonance at a time when Jews are imperiled.
Honor Vashti’s courage while getting this Purim earworm stuck in your head.
March 29-30
Learn about the organization that’s building inclusive communities, training tomorrow’s rabbis, connecting people through digital platforms and dismantling systemic racism and antisemitism.
During the weekly Ritualwell “Holding Each Other” gathering, Poet Ellen Blum Barish invites readers to see flowers in a new way and to draw on everyday objects to find their own creativity.
Rabbi Haviva Ner David, an activist, writer and mother shares what life is like in Israel now and how she found the strength, after October 7, to return to interfaith solidarity work.
Rabbi Deborah Waxman welcomes Cheryl Cook, CEO of Avodah, for a wide-ranging conversation about being women in leadership, justice work, allyship, parenthood and more.
