Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz

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Category: blessing

#BlogElul Day 2: Blessings are expressions of gratitude

August 27, 2014 /


One of my favorite parts of any Jewish worship service is the section sometimes labeled ‘Nisim she’b’chol Yom’ – everyday miracles. We are presented with a series of 1-line sentences that all begin by blessing God as we take a moment to contemplate every little moment that has already passed since the moment we became aware that we were awake that morning, right up to the present. Blessings for the ability to stretch, to open our eyes, to place our feet on the ground, for the clothes we are wearing, and so on.  I often introduce this section of the liturgy at a Bar or Bat mitzvah service because I think its something that everyone in the room can relate to and appreciate. Sometimes I see nods of recognition and see a spark as some in the room realize the power in our fixed liturgy to make us more mindful and appreciative of the ordinary – the things that we take for granted until we no longer have them.  Sometimes I feel some sadness as I watch rows of young teens who are unfamiliar with communal prayer, looking uncomfortable and self-conscious, unable to accept the invitation to verbalize out loud an appreciation for something as simple as waking up.  They will often smile in recognition when I admit that there are many mornings when my first thought, rather than being an expression of blessing, is more like ‘Urgghh… do I have to get up?!’ But that’s when I realize that the power of a repetitive ritual that calls on me to recognize ordinary blessings out loud is the power to shift my whole orientation to the day ahead.  Now that is miraculous!

In our new High Holy Day machzor, Mishkan haNefesh, we are offered the traditional blessings – a list that we can find in the Babylonian Talmud, indicating that they are over 1500 years old. We are also offered other, relatively more recent texts, that express the same sentiment. On Rosh Hashanah morning, one of these options is ‘Miracles’ by Walt Whitman. In this poem, Whitman invites us to experience the everyday through the lens of wonder and amazement:

Why! Who makes mach of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles.
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love –
or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at the table at dinner with my mother,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of an August forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds – or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down – or of stars shining so quiet and bring,
Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new-moon in May…
These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles…
To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every inch of space is a miracle…
Every spear of grass – the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women,
and all that concerns them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.

These blessings are not prayers that ask anything of God. They are simply expressions of Gratitude. A way of growing this character trait of beauty within each one of us. If we want to approach the New Year with an intention to change and repair, this simple practice of morning affirmations can be quite transformative if we choose to make them into a regular habit.

Remembering Debbie Friedman: For All That is Good

January 27, 2014 /
Photo by Angela Gold
I was honored to be able to share some words about my teacher and friend, Debbie Friedman, at the 3rd Yarzheit Kumsitz program in her memory, held at HUC-JIR, New York this past Thursday evening.
There are many stories told in our tradition of students learning from their teachers. When Debbie started teaching at HUC I was already ordained and working in congregational life – my friendship and connection with Debbie begins in 1998, 5 years before I moved to the USA from London. 

But Debbie was also my teacher in the most profound sense highlighted by those stories of old; the teacher who communicates through their actions.

Debbie, as anyone who ever tried to plan a service or a class with her can tell you, did not teach with lesson plans and outlines. Her teaching came straight from her soul.

And I, like so many, learned most from Debbie by observing how she did her work in the world.

Traveling often with Debbie to Healing Services in Weschester in addition to regularly attending at the JCC in Manhattan, this is what I learned from Debbie about healing:

· Many different kinds of people came to a healing service. Some of them recovered from illnesses and surgeries, and some of them did not. Some of them carried years of emotional pain and loss. We call carry some piece within that is in need of healing.

· While not every one could be cured, Debbie brought some healing to them all. She did this by creating a holy vessel in space and time in which, for at least a while, they were lifted up, embraced, and reminded that they mattered; that their presence made a difference in the lives of others. She brought them laughter, and smiles, as well as cathartic tears.

· When the service was over, Debbie was eager to leave promptly. She said emphatically, ‘this is not about me. This is about each of them. I want them to connect with each other, not with me.’ And they did. We laughed together, cried together, celebrated together and mourned together. I made some of my first friends in this country at those services and am forever grateful to them.

Debbie’s rendering of the Mi Shebeirach is, of course, one of the singularly most transformative contemporary prayers that she gifted to us.

But that soul wisdom that she shared in all that she taught us about healing infuses another blessing that she transformed. While not yet so well known, Debbie’s rendition of the Birkat haGomel is equally transformative.

Traditionally, this is a blessing that is said upon recovering from a life-threatening illness or situation. After childbirth, after a car accident, once the cancer is in remission…

The traditional formulation consists of a statement made by the survivor who thanks God for bestowing goodness upon them, and a response by the congregation who prays that God continues to bestow such goodness.

Debbie transformed the experience and the meaning of this blessing. She did this by changing the emphasis of the blessing. While she offers us names for God that describe the things we hope and wish for – Creator of Miracles, Mercy and Life; Protector, Healer – Debbie’s prayer asks us to focus on three words, over and over again: Kol tov Selah. Kol tov – all that is good. Selah – pause and consider.

But not, in fact, to pause and consider how we were saved. That is not Debbie’s prayer. ‘Give thanks for all that is good.’

For what we have is this moment, this hour, this day.

We’ve just lived through an experience that reminded us that we might not have been present in this moment. So we have a blessing to help us to pause and to remind us, literally, to stop and smell the roses. To recognize the blessings.

When we are able to do this it helps us to banish the feelings of fear that can arise and incapacitate us. We are less likely to feel alienated and alone, and more likely to feel connected with the people around us. When we can pause and appreciate the good, even in the midst of illness or loss, we are uplifted if only for a brief moment and, in that moment, we also experience a little bit of healing.

Debbie didn’t call this blessing, Birkat haGomel.

The title that you will find in the new anthology is the one she gave it – ‘For all that is good.’

Thank you, Debbie, for teaching us. Through the Torah that poured out of your very soul you taught us how to connect, how to renew the spirit, how to recognize and appreciate the good that is before us, moment by moment, and how we can bring healing to each other.

Overturning DOMA and the blessing of being seen

June 26, 2013 /

This morning I waited until the Supreme Court convened before posting here. Elation is the feeling that many of us whose marriages have not previously been recognized federally are feeling this morning. And for those in California, marriage equality can, at last, be celebrated. For sure, the work is not yet complete – 40 states continue to discriminate against their citizens. But there is no question that progress was made in civil rights and civil law today.

There is so much that could be said this morning. But for me, the blessing that I am recognizing this morning is the blessing of being seen. It is a blessing that each and every one of us, irrespective of sexuality or any other aspect of our identity, can bestow on others, understanding the incredibly powerful impact of receiving that blessing ourselves. It lies behind the central principle of all world religions, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Each time I have filed my taxes separately from my spouse, each time I had to apply for the next round of immigration on my journey from rabbinic student to permanent resident and the love of my life was invisible … these were moments when an essential part of my self and my life was unseen. Standing in line to come through security on our way back from a trip and watching the married couple in front of us being processed together and then having a TSA agent insist that my wife and I be processed individually was a moment of humiliation that highlighted how something that is so precious to us is treated as unseen by others. And for anyone who has ever had the experience of being denied access to their loved one’s side in a hospital room, the experience of being unseen is excruciatingly painful.

As Jews, every Passover we announce how we will tell the story as if we, ourselves, personally experienced the Exodus from Egypt; we are called upon to get in touch with the experience and feelings of the journey from having lived a restricted life to entering a new world of freedom. Over and over we are reminded in the Torah to remember that we were once slaves in Egypt as we engage with others that we encounter. Our own experiences of being unseen can sensitize us to the ways in which others often go unseen too: the individual who is sitting alone in the synagogue sanctuary, the child who can’t learn in the same way as others but deserves the blessing of a bar or bat mitzvah and a meaningful Jewish life just the same, the homeless person on the street that we can always greet even when we can’t give, the person sitting in a wheelchair who would like you to look at them and speak to them directly when you are serving them in a store, the cashier in the supermarket who isn’t just another piece of the check-out machinery…

The experience of being fully seen is a holy experience. The philosopher, Martin Buber, might call it an ‘I-Thou’ moment. We often hold back from fully revealing ourselves at the deepest, soul level that truly represents who we are because we are afraid that our gift may be rejected. When another person responds in a way that makes us feel invisible, the pain that results is something that most of us, at some point in time, has experienced. But the blessing that comes with revealing our full essence and being received fully by another human being is a truly spiritual experience that brings wholeness not only to individual lives, but to communities and societies too.

For thousands of gay and lesbian married couples, today is a day when we can celebrate the blessing of being seen. May it propel each one of us to do our part to spread that blessing to all.

Blessings beyond Borders – an interfaith tale

June 13, 2012 /

Last Saturday evening I was given an opportunity to be part of a truly wonderful celebration – the Sweet 16 party of a very special young woman.  As I explained to the guests gathered there that evening, this was an evening of firsts for me.  We don’t really make much of the 16th birthday in the UK, probably because 18 is not so far away.  In the UK, 18 takes on greater significance as it is the legal drinking age.  So last Saturday was my first ever Sweet Sixteen party.  Another new and special part of the experience for me was that this Sweet 16 was celebrated Puerto Rican style.  As I learned in preparing for the event, there are variations on the rituals that have become associated with this celebration – Brazilians, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and other Latin American countries all utilize slightly different symbolic acts and objects to represent the transition into womanhood.  Traditionally, these events took place at the age of 15, and so the celebration would be called a Quinceanera.  In North America, the celebration has often shifted to the age of 16, influenced by North American Sweet Sixteen celebrations.  At the celebration I attended, two key ritual moments involved replacing a ribbon in the young woman’s hair with a tiara, and a pair of flat shoes with high heels.  Another part of the tradition is for a priest to offer a blessing, often presenting a bible and a crucifix necklace.  And this is where I came in.
Cinderella's shoes
The young woman in question is Muslim.  Desiring to celebrate her Puerto Rican cultural roots, but minus the religious traditions of Catholicism, it might have been challenging to involve either a Priest or an Imam.  Much of the family was practicing Catholic, and many of the women from the Islamic community were present for the celebration too.  It was a wonderful interfaith and intercultural gathering in and of itself.  But why add a Rabbi to the mix?

I was invited to offer a blessing at this particular Sweet 16 after getting to know this young woman these past two years through our Tent of Abraham interfaith activities.  We had met on several occasions – adult and teen discussion programs, Rosh Hodesh group and Muslim women’s study and celebration gatherings, and Iftar (evening break fast) during Ramadan.   And so it was that, in the week leading up to the celebration we spoke on the phone.  In preparing some words of blessing, I asked her to reflect on significant moments in her life up until now that seemed to her to have shaped her life and her faith.  She spoke of her father’s death at an early age, and later reflecting more deeply on taking responsibility in the world during a time that her mother was unwell.  She spoke of the values that were most important to her – trust, loyalty, compassion, friendship.  She spoke of her belief in one God, who could be addressed and experienced directly by every person.  These words and more were the sentiments that I reflected back to her.  In the mix, as per a request from her and her mother, I explained how the rituals and the celebration compared with Jewish coming-of-age ceremonies.  Just as the evening was filled with many firsts for me (I even began with a few sentences of Spanish – a language I have never studied or spoken before – thanks to the assistance of one of our Puerto Rican staff at the synagogue!), I explained that I was sure that the presence of a Rabbi to offer the blessing was a first for everyone there.  It became an opportunity to learn from and about each other.

In the mix was the Priestly Blessing, an English interpretative rendition by Debbie Friedman, a Rashi interpretation on the blessing, and a blessing over the food sung in Aramaic and English. In just 5 minutes I had the opportunity to share some rich Jewish traditions and prayers with many who may never or rarely had any direct experience of Judaism before.  This was taking Jewish wisdom public in a whole new context.  These were blessings beyond borders.  It certainly was a blessing for me to attend and participate in this wonderful young woman’s special evening.
Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz

Once in a blue moon – Blessings for 2010!

December 31, 2009 /
If you’ve been paying attention the last couple of days, you’ll have heard some fuss being made about this New Year’s Eve being a ‘blue moon.’  This phrase has changed its meaning over the centuries, but these days it is defined as the second full moon in a single month, or as the third full moon in a season that has four full moons.  Tonight’s moon is the second full moon of December; the first occurred Dec. 2.

Though the expression “once in a blue moon” is used to describe extremely rare events, blue moons aren’t all that unusual, occurring every 21/2 years or so. But a New Year’s Eve blue moon is somewhat more remarkable — we haven’t had one since 1990.  Another titbit of information – Blue moons of this sort aren’t actually blue in color (which I was a bit disappointed to learn).
Wikipedia informs us that: The earliest recorded English usage of the term “blue moon” was in a 1528 pamphlet violently attacking the English clergy, entitled “Rede Me and Be Not Wrothe” (Read me and be not angry): “Yf they say the mone is belewe / We must believe that it is true” [If they say the moon is blue, we must believe that it is true]. (From this we also learn that the ancestors of my homeland had terrible spelling!)
Some interpret this “blue moon” as relating to absurdities and impossibilities, and a similar moon-related adage was first recorded in the following year: “They would make men beleue … that þe Moone is made of grene chese” [They would make men believe … that the moon is made of green cheese].


One thing that this little splurge of media attention has done is to bring many more people’s attention to what the moon is doing on any particular night – how many thousands will look up and notice (hopefully, if the sky is clear) a beautiful part of our night sky this evening?  They are getting just a taste of something that, if we are tuned in, is a gift of the rhythm of Jewish time each and every month – we run on a lunar calendar.  Each announcement of the new month brings us a dark sky with the merest sliver of light, waxing to its fullness in the middle of the Jewish month (note that our major holiday of Pesach begins on a full moon – 15 Nisan), and then waning again.  We bless the month in our liturgy, and some Jewish communities practice the ritual of Kidush levana – Sanctification of the Moon – about a week later when the moon is fully visible.  At B’nai Israel, our monthly Rosh Hodesh group – a women’s spiritual study group – honors the tradition of the new moon being a ‘holiday’ for women, and a time to come together to connect and engage.

Tonight is the 14 Tevet, in a month with 29 days.  Look up at the moon tonight, and the next night, and the next… feel the rhythm of turning, ebbing, flowing, spiraling… onward and into 2010.
Blessings for health, happiness and wholeness to all.
Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz

Taking a dip in the Pool of Blessing – A Thanksgiving meditation

November 25, 2009 /




This post was created as part of a global groundswell of gratitude calledTweetsGiving. The celebration, created by US nonprofit Epic Change, is an experiment in social innovation that seeks to change the world through the power of gratitude. I hope you’ll visit the TweetsGiving site to learn more, and to bring your grateful heart to the party by sharing your gratitude, and giving in honor of that for which you’re most thankful.


This Thanksgiving offering also appears in this week’s Jewish Ledger newspaper, along with the Thanksgiving reflections of several other CT rabbis.


I’ve had the opportunity to share the following gratitude ritual at a number of retreats, conferences, and summer camp programs. It’s a way to tap into an attitude of gratitude that is part of our Jewish prayer rituals, but can sometimes get lost in all the words. So let’s focus on just one word – Barukh – Blessed. The Hebrew root of this word is also found in Berekh (knee) and Braykha (pool). Most people get the connection between the first and second of these – we bend the knee when we say the Barekhu and in the opening blessings of the Amidah. But what about the ‘pool’? We can envision a reality in which God’s Divine blessing is constantly flowing; we need only bring consciousness to aligning ourselves with this flow of blessing to experience it. As it flows from the spiritual realm to us, it is our job to send the flow back to its Source, and this is dipping into the pool of blessing, expressing our gratitude, and so the cycle continues. A colleague of mine, Rabbi Michelle Pearlman, recently likened the image, quite wonderfully, to a chocolate fountain (but one where the chocolate never runs out!)
When I illustrate this in a creative prayer service, we set up a table, decorated with watery images, into which are placed strips of blue paper, folded like ripples, each containing a gratitude teaching. Some contain traditional Jewish words, like Modah Ani lefanecha… – Thankful am I before You (the opening words of the first prayer that is traditionally uttered upon waking), but many contain teachings from other sources:
‘God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say “thank you?”’ (William A. Ward)
“Saying thank you is more than good manners. It is good spirituality.” (Alfred Painter)
‘Thanksgiving is good but thanks-living is better.’ (Matthew Henry;1662-1714)
If we remember that the fountain of blessing is always flowing, and we can always find it if we are open to receiving, each and every day becomes Thanksgiving.
Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz

17 Elul. Gratitude for Daily Miracles

September 5, 2009 /

Inspired by last week’s posting about a local Happiness Club, and ways to re-center our lives each and every day by beginning with an attitude of gratitude, congregant Beth Lazar wrote this poem – a contemporary interpretation of the traditional birkat hashachar – the morning blessings.


Thank-you God for awakening me to the new day
to You & only You I pray
Thank-you for enabling me to speak
Please accept these words of praise from your servant so meek –
Your Holy blessing I do seek.
Thank-you God 
for my eyes and the ability to see
the forces of loving friends and family
and the beauty of your creativity.
Thank-you God 
for my ears and the ability to hear
birds chirping, the wind & music
Words of wisdom & words of good cheer.
Thank-you God
for my strong arms & legs
that enable me to work & play
and get me where I want to go
and enable me to reap & sow.
Thank-you God
for the clothing on my back
healthy food, shelter, clothing
There is nothing that I lack.
Thank-you God
for these miracles You perform each day
to You & only You I pray.
Please accept these words of thanks
from Your servant so meek
Your Holy acceptance I do seek.
Have a daily affirmation that helps to orientate you for the day?  Please share it by leaving a comment.

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