The Advocate

( Hebrew Tattoos ) I have wanted to get a tattoo for years, but because of a deep-seated fear of needles, I have continued to put it off. This year, I will be turning 36 and I have decided for my double-chai birthday that I want to finally take this step in my journey. Being Jewish is such a central part of my identity, my life, my beliefs, and my path. There are so many different Jewish things I could think of that would make for amazing, beautiful tattoos. However, there is one concept that I believe contains all of them and more, that precedes and exceeds them. That is the concept of Eyn Sof . Without end . God, the universe, Jews, whatever your higher power or plane or presence you are connected to... all of it is without end. All of it is beyond the ability of humanity to describe in words, to capture in paint or pictures, to hear in songs or silence, to touch in stone or sand, to smell in smoke or steam, to hold in our hands or our minds. It is everything. It is nothing. It is be...

( Art by Bluelela ) Gimel Zayin Yud : GZY is an acronym for gam zeh ya'avor, which means "this too shall pass / and this, too, shall pass away." There are many stories of its origin, but this is my favorite:  "One day Solomon decided to humble Benaiah Ben Yehoyada, his most trusted minister. He said to him, “Benaiah, there is a certain ring that I want you to bring to me.” “If it exists anywhere on earth, your majesty,” replied Benaiah, “I will find it and bring it to you, but what makes the ring so special?” “It has magic powers,” answered the king. “If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy.” Solomon knew that no such ring existed in the world, but he wished to give his minister a little taste of humility. Spring passed and then summer, and still Benaiah had no idea where he could find the ring. He was about to give up when he decided to take a walk in one of the poorest quarters of Jerusalem. He passed by a merchant...

(Art by Robert Deninno) Kavod Habriyot : human honor and dignity. A concept for how we interpret and apply Jewish laws and rules where we uplift the inherent value and worth of a person over anything else. It is another principle that allows a Jew to violate religious requirements in pursuit of a higher good that is similar to pikuach nefesh (saving a life). For instance, when Rav Nahman bar Yitzhak is challenged by Rabbi Yohanan, the brother of his good friend Mar. The story goes that a corpse was found in the city of Derokera, and Rav Nahman bar Yitzhak permitted carrying it to a karmelit (a semi-public domain into which carrying on Shabbat only involves a minor transgression). Notably, "Rav Nahman bar Yitzhak was a renowned scholar who later became head of the Babylonian Academy in Pumbeditha. But as we are taught elsewhere, his primary scholarly achievements involved not innovating new legal positions, but accurately preserving and sharing the Torah teachings that he had recei...

Devekut : literally means dedication but traditionally refers to cleaving to God. In ancient Hebrew, to cleave is to become close, to join with, to adhere, to abide fast together, to follow. In religious Judaism and in academia, it's most commonly associated with the philosophical and mystical understanding of cleaving or attaching oneself to God in all areas of life. It can also refer to a deep, trance-like meditative state attained during prayer, Torah study, or when performing the 613 mitzvot. While it's particularly associated with the Jewish mystical tradition, in modern Israeli Hebrew, it's also often a synonym for dedication towards a particular goal. Devekut is that moment of silence when your mind is completely open, listening to your spirit harmonize with the world around you. It can appear as a sudden flash or a quiet realization, and all your misconceptions fall away until the only thing that remains is a feeling of pure connection with whatever you choose to fo...

(Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, 1850 painting by David Roberts) Yavne: a city in the central district of Israel. “For roughly a thousand years, Jewish worship meant bringing sacrifices to the Temple in Jerusalem. Then, in 70 CE, with the Temple about to fall, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai imagined an alternative. He famously asked the Roman Emperor to 'Give me Yavne and its Sages.' From the academies of Yavne came a new form of worship, based on prayer and study. Animal sacrifice, it turned out, was not essential to being a Jew.” But in a larger sense, Yavne means acknowledging “a phase of Jewish history had run its course.” It means that Jews are a living people and part of that process is listening, learning, growing, changing, even or especially when we face our most painful challenges and our most bitter losses. It doesn’t mean abandoning our traditions or community. It doesn’t mean abandoning who we are as a people. Rather, it means embracing what we as a pe...

Parnassah: which means livelihood. It's your income and your ability to support yourself. Traditionally, it has meant your "living" in the sense of "making a living." However, as with all Jewish things, there's a deeper meaning. Parnassah is about more than securing the money to survive in society. It's about understanding the worth of our labor, the costs of our trade, and to chose our occupation with care, because "life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at." Learn more here . Take note and take care.

Gilgul: (plural gilgulim) also known as Gilgul neshamot/Gilgulei Ha Neshamo. In Hebrew, the word gilgul means "cycle" or "wheel" and neshamot is the plural for "souls." Souls are seen to cycle through lives or incarnations, being attached to different human bodies over time. Which body they associate with depends on their particular task in the physical world, spiritual levels of the bodies of predecessors and so on. The concept relates to the wider processes of history in Kabbalah, involving cosmic Tikkun (Messianic rectification), and the historical dynamic of ascending Lights and descending Vessels from generation to generation. Rolling of the souls through life from body to body, animal or human, basically metempsychosis. There's gilgul, transmigration proper, in which a soul that had previously inhabited one body is sent back to earth to inhabit another body. Then ibbur, “impregnation,” in which a soul descends from heaven in order to assist anoth...

( Books of Jewish Beauty ) Hadran Alach : “hadran alach, ve’hadrach alan,” which is Aramaic for “we have returned to you and we will return to you, dear tractate, and you have returned to us and will return to us.” We say this when finishing any book, not just religious ones. We treat books almost as if they are people, capable of thought and feeling. We respect and revere them. We treat them as guests of honor in our lives. They are to be visited often, to be remembered, and to be returned to in gratitude and thankfulness for the gifts of knowledge and enjoyment that they have provided. Take note and take care.

( Art by Ruth Schreiber ) Lo Bashamayim Hi : Not in Heaven , made famous by the Talmudic story of The Oven of Akhnai. (This story teaches far more than just this lesson, so definitely give it a read!) The phrase and story help to reflect the Jewish view of mitzvot, the feasibility of following halakha, and the importance of every generation to work to understand Torah. In short, it explains the justification of our authority, not God's, to create a Judaism that is meaningful for us here and now as it was for our ancestors in the past. NB: for any term you don't understand, Google is your friend! But I'm happy to answer more in the comments. Take note and take care.

Kavanah : the Hebrew word for direction, intention, or purpose. In its simplest meaning, it refers to concentrating the mind in the performance of a task, ensuring that it doesn’t devolve into rote, mechanical action. It is most commonly associated with concentration and intention in Jewish prayer, but the concept of kavanah applies to all mitzvot. Abraham Joshua Heschel, in his classic work God in Search of Man, explains that performing a mitzvah without proper kavanah is inadequate because while it might have a positive effect on the world, it leaves the doer of the mitzvah unaffected. The purpose of Jewish practice, he writes, is transformation of the soul. “A moral deed unwittingly done may be relevant to the world because of the aid it renders unto others. Yet a deed without devotion, for all its effects on the lives of others, will leave the life of the doer unaffected. The true goal for man is to be what he does.” NB: for any term you don't understand, Google is your friend!...

A while ago I started posting this topic on my other social media accounts to cultivate a healthier and more sustainable social media praxis. But I never thought to share them on here! Well, to correct that oversight, here are all the posts since I started in order from the very first to the most recent. NB: for any term you don't understand, Google is your friend! But I'm happy to answer more in the comments. *** What are #MyJewishValues? Well, these include aggadah, minhag, musar, and nusach that are part of my Torah, my yiddishkeit, but especially what I'm passing on to my daughters as the heritage they inherit. So, here goes... Avodah : work, worship, service. Especially the power and value of service in work as well as in worship. This is distinct from its original and modern meanings in Hebrew. For me, what is tikkun olam if not avodah persevering? Shalom bayit: peace and harmony in the home. For my family that includes equity in the division of domestic labor running...