Ruby Red Seeds – the First Book from Ketzirah

I am so excited to announce that I’ve published my first book!  It’s a collection of poetry, prayer and midrash called, “Ruby Red Seeds.”  My hope is that it’s all the juicy goodness of the pomegranates we’ve been peeling together over the past eight years that I’ve been writing this blog.  Yes, it’s really been eight years — I launched peelapom.com in June, 2004.

I debated finding a publisher, but I decided in the end to follow the lead of RK’Taya Shere, who has released two amazing albums sans label, and R’Rachel Barenblatt who self-published her first book. I can’t tell you how much work has gone into this book.  The problem with DIY, is that you have to Do It all Yourself!!

The book is available as of today on Amazon.com.

The book is broken into three sections: LIFE, PSALMS, MIDRASH.  The majority of the pieces  in the book appeared here on the site in their embryonic forms, and only one (I think) has ever been published anywhere else in its final form.

Pieces appearing in the book are:

LIFE:

• Untitled
• Chrysalis
• The Chosen People
• The Maiden
• The Fool
• Prayer for Creation
• This is My Life
• Existence
• I am I
• Mourner’s Kaddish: A Prayer to the Living
• Mourner’s Kaddish: A Prayer from the Living

PSALMS:

• Halleluyah
• Re-Dedicating the Temple
• Lift Me Up
• Modern Woman of Valor
• Turn your Eyes
• Human

MIDRASH

• Miriam the Prophetess

If you happen to be in San Francisco airport, take  advantage of the opportunity to see Janet Echelman’s work in person.  It’s one of the amazing delights that this airport actually offers!

Tags: art, design, embroidered prayers, inspiration, janet echelman, TED, women

Tags: arts, design, inspiration, nature, reuben margolin, sculpture, TED, thinking

Milk 2 by Andrew Magill, used by CC-A permissions

x-posted at PunkTorah.org

It’s traditional to eat dairy on Shavuot, which begins the first week of Sivan.  Because of this, we’re going to explore dairy for the month of Sivan.

Let’s start with the separation of milk and meat in the Torah.  What it actually says is “don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk” (לֹא-תְבַשֵּׁל גְּדִי, בַּחֲלֵב אִמּוֹ). This prohibition is found tthree times in the Torah: Ex 23:19,  Ex 34: 26 and Deut 14:21, which means — seriously, don’t freaking do this we’re not kidding around!!!   Most likely this was a prohibition on mixing life and death; milk being the source of life and death being meat, very literally in this case the meat of the kid goat. It was also, according to the Encyclopeida of Jewish Symbols, a common ancient pagan practice to give an offering of a kid boiled it it’s mother’s milk as part of religoius rites.  This is also a good reason that it was prohibited in ancient Jewish practice. Like so many things in Jewish tradition walls upon walls were built up to ensure we don’t accidentally make this mistake.

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Tags: cheese, dairy, food, jewish, judaism, kashrut, kosher, milk, traditions

I received an email asking me about the use of incense for  Rosh Chodesh.  Normally, I would just reply to the email but the woman must have mis-entered her address when she filled out the contact form.   I figured if I post this to the site there was a chance she might see it.  Feel free to ask me your questions!

Question:

I am looking for information on incense or smudging as part of early Jewish home or tribal life. Want to make it a part of Rosh Chodesh meetup but some might be skeptical.

~ D.

Tags: incense, Kohenet, responsa, smudging

At Limmud Philly 2012, I debuted a new workshop:Exploring the CyberShul: Engaging your Community through Cyber Services.  The workshop is based on my own experiences via Peeling a Pomegranate, OneShul.org, PunkTorah, and my occupation as a digital marketing strategist! For once I got to pull all my worlds together.

Below (or after the jump) is the handout from the workshop.  I’d love to hear your experiences integrating technology into your services, outreach, and engagement programs!

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Tags: digital strategy, judaism, outreach, religion, social media, synagogues, technology

At Limmud Philly 2012, I debuted a new workshop: Jewish Ritual Craft – A framework for ritual designing better rituals.  It’s based on a year-long class I’m teaching at my home spiritual community of Becoming, but adapted for an entirely Jewish audience. Below, after jump, are the materials created for the workshop, including a Jewish Ritual Design Worksheet.   The handouts explain what each section of the worksheet is about.

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Tags: jewish, judaism, Kohenet, religion, Renewal, ritual, ritual designs, spirituality