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My baby is finally live, three years in the making...welcome to the first episode in the Torah: Parshat Bereshit.


G-dcast: Parshat Bereshit from g-dcast on Vimeo.

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Read my kvetch

My first (and no doubt last) piece in the local Jewish paper hit today. Shabbat Shalom. I'll let you know when I dig myself out of this hole.


Let's talk about the future - with no agendas

The Rainbow connection

"They’re a little insistent, but that’s the way Jews are." - Bouncing Baby, on Chabad’s presence at the Rainbow Gathering.

Like a lot of you, I go to my share of festivals, gatherings, hoedowns and whatnot. The one big festival I’ve never been to is the Rainbow Gathering, that annual summer celebration of peace, love, and shared food in the national forest. I was pretty curious for a long while, but never got it together, and then I met E, my next-door neighbor on East 12th Street in the Village. (This was back in 2000, before I made the Westward Migration.)

E was born into the “Family,” raised in Yogaville and bringing light and music to the world with Doofus and other NYC hobos. She went to every Rainbow gathering in New York and tried to bring me along. But I was having my baalat teshuva moment at the time and all I wanted to do was gather with my newfound family…down on Grand Street. All of E’s friends seemed like mooches that wanted to eat all her food and stink up the the hallway with patchouli.

So years later, it was with interest that I today watched Under the Rainbow, Ryan Lifchitz’s documentary about a group of Lubavitchers who go to the 1998 Arizona Rainbow gathering to set up a kosher kitchen and basically, do the Chabad thing. They Bar Mitzvah people, wrap tefillin, share their food, upgrade some neshamas and so forth. They also get their minds opened a little bit about the counterculture. Our heroes have varied experiences of the scene - some are more interested and accepting than others, who see the nudity, drugs and seeker vibe as a symptom of our greater ailing moral culture.

This is a fun little documentary, and a good glimpse of a world many haven’t had the chance to see in person. The film is a bit heavy on crazy old hippies talking shit, and far too few women doing anything, but still, if you’re at all interested in Rainbow, or in Chabad, it’s worth a peek.
San Francisco seekers will get a special kick out of an adorable young Yoav Potash, who’s excited to see the Chabadniks in the forest and what the event will do to them, as well as how they will elevate the event.

Under the Rainbow (three clips of about 20 minutes each)

Jewels of Elul

Today is the 3rd day of Elul, a month that many Jews use to spiritually prepare for the climactic high holidays that come at the end (Rosh Hashana starts September 12, get your apples and honey basket here!)

I was asked this year to contribute to a book of inspiring Jewish ideas, one for each day of Elul. I'm in some pretty serious company - today's jewel is by Matisyahu, and they are forthcoming from the Dalai Lama, Deppak Chopra, Rabbi Harold Kushner and so on. I don't know when mine will go up, but you can read them as they're posted, or order the free book, here.

Jewels of Elul

Oy, meh haya lanu

Today, Tisha B'Av, is the darkest day in the Jewish calendar. It doesn’t have to be the most depressing if we use it to change our ways.

Last night, at the Mission Minyan’s reading of Eicha (the book of Lamentations), I noticed something in the text that spoke anew to me, quite strongly and damningly this year. From Chapter 5, verse 4:

We pay money to drink our own water, obtain our wood at a price.

It is easy for anyone to read Eicha, look around and draw parallels to contemporary society, whether in the modern, literal Jerusalem, or in our various communities - Jewish or otherwise. It is sadly easy to put together a compelling talk about the themes of personal, civil, spiritual and ecological destruction and degradation that Jeremiah intones, which are so revelant today.

It is also easy to stop contributing to the destruction. Stop buying your own water, the water that YOU OWN as a citizen of the earth (and of course as a taxpaying citizen of a first world country with a municipal water supply.)

I live in one of the most environmentally aware places in the US, with a delicious, pure and safe water supply coming from the Hetch Hetchy valley and dam in Yosemite…yet many people I know actually STOCK bottled water in their homes. I complain about this constantly, directly to them, to anyone who will listen. The water in Hetch Hetchy - that comes through our taps in San Francisco - is so great that my former boss at Camp Tawonga used to joke about getting rich by bottling and selling it back to all these bozos.

That’s no joke as it turns out - it’s exactly what the big bottling companies are doing. Most of the bottled water for sale in our cities comes from “municipal sources.” AKA places not even as wonderful as Hetch Hetchy.

I am tired about hearing about “convenience”. Convenience is digging us a grave of plastic. This is an easy thing to fix. Get a water bottle. Use your tap. Enjoy a wonderful municipal asset.