Here Is Wonder

As part of my journey to correct the tragic deficit in women’s voices on my bookshelf I asked people for the authors & books that most enriched their Jewish learning and living. These were their recommendations: Rachel Adler’s Engendering Judaism Judith Antonelli's In the Image of God Ada Rapoport Albert's Hasidic Studies: Essays in History and Gender Sue Elwell & Nancy Fuchs Kreimer's (Eds.) Chapters of the Heart: Jewish Women Sharing the Torah of Our Lives Rabbi Jill Hammer and Holly Shere's Siddur HaKohanot Marcia Falk’s The Book of Blessings: New Jewish Prayers for Daily Life, the Sabbath, and the New Moon Festival Rabbi Emily H. Feigenson's Beginning the Journey: Toward a Women's Commentary on Torah Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb's She Who Dwells Within Rachel Beth Gross'  Beyond the Synagogue Aliza Lavie's (Ed.) A Jewish Woman’s Prayer Book Naomi Levy's Talking to God Simi Peters's Learning to Read Midrash Renee Levine Melammed's Heret

I received my rabbinical ordination (s'micha) on Sunday, 3 July 2022 / 4 Tamuz 5782. My Presenters were Rabbi Jeremy Gordon & Rabbi Debbie Young-Somers. I was ordained by Rabbi Dr Charles Middleburgh. This was my address. --- I was raised by loving parents in a small shtetl called Hendon.  My childhood home was a beacon of Jewish practice and my formative years bathed in the glow of the richness of Jewish ritual and theology.  However, around the time of my Bar Mitzvah - my Jewish coming of age - I began to find the former cumbersome and the latter archaic and dogmatic.  I might never have re-immersed myself in Jewish life had it not been for one other vitally important thing ever present in my life - chesed .  Sometimes English speaking Jews translate chesed as kindness, but this does not do justice to our tradition.  The Hebrew root for chesed -  ח-ס-ד - appears in the Tanakh (The Jewish Bible) around 250 times and these can be translated in almost as many ways!  However al