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Hello there,

I hope that second week of Elul have been meaningful in all the ways you’ve hoped for. My kiddo and I came down with COVID, so you’re getting this weekly email in loosy-goosy late fashion while I am slowly recovering.

This daily practice that my friend Leia and I have been exploring continues to really supportive for me, both in thinking about my reflections and in creating a framework for these reflections to be part of my yearly cycle of Jewish practice.

Reminder of the process: Each day, I awaken to find which name of G-d Leia (who is 14 hours ahead of me) chose to reflect on next, marvel at the resulting collage art (which I’ll let Leia share if they wish), then I intuit some questions for myself about my relationship to that name and how I embody that name, I spend time with those questions, and then I create a prayer to that name that I try to carry with me through the day.

[Here are the Week 1 names if you need them.]

Here are the next 7 names we’ve explored so far, and what grew from that exploration with a reminder that it’s still in a first draft form. Feel free to engage with these questions and prayer for personal use – journaling or pondering, or to create a personal practice that better suits your journey.

Yedid Nefesh — יְדִיד נֶפֶש – Soulmate / Soul Friend

• Do I enter my relationship with the divine, with myself, with others, with hope and openness for a deep and lasting connection?
  • Am I a friend who, in safe and reciprocal relationships, relies on others and is reliable as well?
  • Have I cultivated and tended relationships in which I feel able to be seen at a soul level, where I feel known deeply even if the way I present myself to the world changes?
  • I ask Yedid Nefesh to hold me like a lifelong friend, modeling a love I can then embody, one that welcomes being held and seen, and also holds me responsible for the holding and seeing of others.

Avinu / Imeinu — אָבִינוּ/ אימינו – Our Father/Mother/Parent

• Have I grappled with the difference between simply being older and earning the title of elder? Do I carry this nuance into how and when I defer to someone older or challenge and grow forward from their stopping point?
• Do I reach for wisdom with humility, knowing that the true elders in my life offer lived experience and knowledge upon which I can build? 
• Do I allow myself to be held safely and nurtured by knowledge I don’t yet possess, when the source embodies this face of G-d?
• Am I able to hold parenthood complexly, whether in this divine name, in my own parents, or in my own parenting, reaching for wisdom while also knowing my role in furthering and refining the role of parent?
• I ask Avinu / Imeinu to comfort and guide me with a presence that demonstrates wisdom and encourages me to build upon it, creating my own trajectory toward earned elderhood.

Eli — אלי – My God

• Have I identified and reached for the face of G-d most readily in my line of vision? Have I done the same in seeking solutions, connections, and support?
• Do I reach for accessible presence, whether from G-d or from others, investing myself in relationships that are divine by way of their availability and intentionality?
• Do I remember to embody my own potential to be a source of divine presence in the lives of those in my immediate vicinity?
• I ask Eli to help me and guide me and challenge me from up close, and direct me in balancing my level of seeking so that I am never turning away from support or responsibility that is already right in my backyard.

Elohei Avoteinu — אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹותֵינוּ –God of Our Ancestors

• Have I grappled with what has been handed to me by way of prior generations, both in my own lineage and the long history of the Jewish people?
• Am I living a life toward being an Ancestor, someone who has lived and died well, who has grappled their history and endeavoured to build upon it intentionally?
• How do I wrestle in that sacred Jewish way to reconcile the Judaism of my ancestors with the Judaism I am living forward? How do I also wrestle with these layers of my personal lineage beyond Judaism?
• I ask Elohei Avoteinu to hold, challenge, and enlighten me within the long lineage I carry within me, so that I may embody the best of my ancestors and heal/repair what they did not.

Shekhinah — שְׁכִינָה –The In-Dwelling Presence

• Have I carried well the part of divinity that makes a home within me? Have I done my best to earn the trust of my most sacred inner cohabitant through my actions in the world, toward myself, and toward others?
• Do I show up in the world carrying the responsibility of inner sovereignty while also deeply respecting and protecting the sovereignty of others?
• How often do I remember that the sacred progress I wish to see in the world often starts with me and my embodiment of that potential?
• I ask Shekhinah to nurture my sense of what is divine within myself, so that I show up in the world with the energy of that sacred presence fueling my best actions for myself and the world.

El Nora (Nora’ah) – אֵל נוֹרָא – The Great One/ The One Who Inspires Awe

• Have I taken time to truly marvel at the world, at people, at nature, and at my part of the whole? Do I allow and even prioritize this kind of amazement as a way of balancing what is disappointing, painful, or enraging?
• Do I take time to intentionally reach for the face of G-d that reminds me of the scale of it all, that places me in view of the true proportion of all things and my place among them?
• I ask El Nora to astonish me with a sacred vantage point that can help me to feel less alone, less solely responsible, more possessing of a balanced ego and awe-inspiring sense of my role in the world.

Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh — אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה‎ – I Will Be What I Will Be / Sacred Emergence

• Have I been willing to blossom in the right time, and without struggling against my natural growth cycle? Have I also allowed this of others?
• Do I recognize and celebrate when I have unearthed something new in myself? Do I show up and integrate those system upgrades in myself and in those I love?
• Will I use exactly who I am, in the divine image of this name of G-d, to show up in the world with the responsibility of a fully formed divine creation, refusing to wait until some unknown point of unattained change?
• I ask Ehyeh Asher Eyheh to help me in being exactly where I am and exactly who I am, in recognizing which petals or leaves are ready to unfurl and which are growing without any need to strain toward that a premature blossoming.

Reminder of other places that I’ve found Elul offerings/spaces, if you’re still looking:

• Opening Your Heart to Psalm 27 by Rabbi Debra J Robbins (there’s an app too)
• Elul Unbound 2024 from Judaism Unbound (see you on Fridays if you decide to join!)
• Weekly Elul offerings from The Torah Studio! (see you on Thursdays if you decide to join!)
• Change Happens in the Moment Before, a daily listening practice from the lovely Dr. Eva Peskin (these have been lovely!)
• Daily creative prompts from Jewish Studio Project (delivered to your inbox each day)

IAlso, these are places toward which I’m aiming my daily funds so far:

• The Sameer Project – Donation-based iniative for Gaza led by Palestinians
• Operation Olive Branch – Donations to a different GoFundMe for each day
• eSIMs for Gaza – At each week mark, I’m checking the balance on eSIMs I’ve already donated to top them off, and purchasing a new one. (I use Nomad and my referral code YAAK32CY will save us each 25% on purchase of a future eSIM.)

Offered as a launching point for another week: The name chosen by Leia for Elul 15 is Moreinu, or Our Teacher, followed by HaMakom, or The Place, and Kol Dimama, or Still Small Voice.

Wishing you a meaningful week 3,
Yaakov

Originally posted on the newsletter.

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A post shared by Yaakov | יעקב 😷🍉 (@yaakov.akiva)

I’m inspired by @julesavivrose to share most of the letter I sent two weeks ago, withdrawing membership from my local Zionist congregation, including my child’s enrollment in chadash, where we eventually discovered the root of some mysterious issues that had been going on (not just at chadash but on the bus as well) had to do with our family’s pro-Palestine stance. I omitted some bits that were about my kiddo or that reveal personal details, but this is 90% of the letter.

The day I sent this was a really hard day, including deep disappointment in the quick and very brief response from the rabbi (no response at all from the chadash director), but I’ve realized in the two weeks since sending this that the agonizing over whether to leave was taking up all of the space in my life where Jewish practice had been.

I’ve created more art, studied more Torah, and enthusiastically attended more services and Jewish gathering in these two weeks than in the several months prior. A local friend sang the praises of @tzedekchicago, so I went to their Shabbat service the same night I sent the letter and I immediately felt at home.

This year feels like a big, BIG lesson about the aching, tunneling wound that is made by a person trying to fit in spaces that don’t want all of that person. I may have spent just a week in the hospital fighting sepsis in the end of February, but I have been septic with a lack of true community for months, and sending this letter cleaned that wound and made space for healing, for the medicine of finding a new Jewish home where I had finally made space for one.

I have worried in recent months that being anti-Zionist would eventually cost me my Jewishness, and it has definitely cost me a community that I thought I needed, but finding truly aligned and safe community has allowed me to feel more Jewish than I have in a long time. Thankful to @wabbi.wosen and @tzedekchicago for being the lighthouse a lot of us need right now.

Shavua tov. Chag sameach. Free Palestine. Wear a mask. Zionism isn’t Judaism and liberal zionism isn’t a thing. Good night.

Wow, it’s been a minute or several since my last email. Winter has been quiet and reflective and heavy, but I’m still here. Chanukah was beautiful and quiet and lovely, I finished some shabbat-inspired artwork, I went to visit my grandmother’s grave on her yahrzeit amid a beautiful day of timely fog, I took a moment to remind us all that trans people are divine, and as my kiddo’s winter break ended I was so glad to see Torah Studio classes begin again.

Here are my sparse notes from this week’s class on Psalm 51:

I don’t know that I had ever thought about this line in terms of a concept I’ve heard often in recovery spaces, that sometimes praying for willingness to be willing comes before anything else. Naming it in order to begin taming it. Say the thing in order to be seen and feel held within whatever is happening for us. I can think of so many instances when just naming what is happening/what happened is such a powerful place to start… depression, trauma, starting the process of amends, addressing any needed change. This line has whole new layers of meaning for me now.

And this is the culmination of two week’s of art-making based on last week’s parsha and this week (Parshat Bo):

I started this last week as a visual representation of the hardened heart as the hail that held flame, and then this line from this week’s parsha and the tangible darkness brought it all together.

Thinking about a heavy, oppressive darkness felt in the presence of hardened hearts feels so relatable right now. I thought a lot last week about hardening a heart in power because those responsible for change are the community, a public being tasked with immense change in spite of power, and that we as community are in so many ways struggling with and often failing at that task just as much as those who did during the exodus.

Wishing you all the kind of shabbat you need this week, whether it’s restful, playful, contemplative, or some other vibe entirely. You deserve it.

Shabbat shalom, or if you’re catching this after, shavua tov.

Yaakov

Originally posted via the newsletter

SHABBAT SHALOM, DREAMERS. <3

I’ll mostly let my notes on Parshat Vayeshev speak for themselves, but let it be known that I’m firmly in the camp of Joseph being a neurodivergent, gender expansive, queer dreamer I can relate to, whose story is itself a dream that reveals MUCH about the interpreter… us.

How we read Joseph is incredibly telling, maybe moreso than anything other ancestor. I know that my own lens is tinted by my own identity as a neurodivergent, gender expansive, queer dreamer with my own trauma and my own deeply complex and fraught family story, and from that angle this story is one that contains really powerful moments of witnessing my own story and healing, especially in the week’s to come.

Questions for pondering:
– Do we protect, encourage, or resent and judge dreamers?
– How do we each tend our own inner dreamer?

HAPPY CHANUKAH!

I have exciting news for Chanukah season, which is that I will have art included in the winter quarterly publication from Yente, an awesome UK-based, queer, Jewish student-run, creative collective. This edition is centered around Judith, the less often celebrated heroine of the Chanukah season. Highly recommend reading about her, but my quick recap will help frame understanding of the art I submitted, which I’ll share below.

My retelling of Judith’s Resistance:

Once upon a time, there was a widow with a great deal of chutzpah who was surrounded by her beloved people whose city was under siege and by the Assyrians, led by a general, Holofernes. The city ran out of water and the men decided to ask HaShem for help and then wait longer for water to appear, but Judith would have none of this and took delicious cheese, wine, and her chutzpah and she said to the men, “Listen to me and I will do something which will be remembered throughout all generations among the children of our nation.”

Then, she went to the enemy camp and gave delicious, salty cheese to the general, Holofernes, until he was compelled to drink tremendous amounts of the wine she offered, more wine than he had ever had since he’d been born, and upon his succumbing to the effects of the wine and losing consciousness, Judith took the general’s own blade and cut off his head, returning to her people with his head, and eventually reclaiming the land and the water. And thus, she is indeed remembered throughout the generations.

I hope that your Chanukah musings might include honoring of the incredible resistance and fortitude of a woman who knew what to do and saved her people through her resistance to both the passivity of the men leading her people and the oppressive forces that endeavored to kill her people through theft of life-giving, soul-nourishing water.

My depiction of Judith’s Resistance:

You can order your own copy of the Judith edition of Yente here:
UK Ordering | International Ordering

I’ve also quickly uploaded this piece for purchasing a print, sticker, etc.:
Judith’s Resistance on Redbubble

I’m wishing all of you who read these little bits of musing so many lovely nights of light, warmth, family, fried potato goodness, and a refueling of your own Judith-flavored chutzpah during these upcoming days.

Chag urim sameach!

Yaakov

Shabbat shalom!

This is a long one, because I got to study a new favorite psalm AND revisit my favorite all-time parsha in one week. Friggin’ fantastic week as far as Jewish study goes. Literally everything else about this week can kindly consume a sizeable satchel of Richards.

ahem

Anyway.

Psalm 46: Invitation/Reminder to Surrender

Psalm 46 earned a bookmark for frequent reference after this week’s discussion with Lexi and the Torah Studio crew. There is so much here, but notably no plea for rescue, nor is it an invitation to bypass the reality of the world, or to ignore the life-giving and destructive nature of existence or the Source of that existence. 

What we create collapses. Divine creation also collapses. Source looms among us and our creations. Source looms upon the earth. Creation was made to collapse, and we are made in the image of the Source of creation, collapse, and destruction, with a reminder to look toward the next creating rather than attempting to deny what has befallen us. 

The reader is reminded in this psalm that our fortress is the G*d of Yaakov. Not of Moses or Abraham or of today. Specifically of the ancestor who wrestled with life, wrestled with G*d, wrestled with identity, and had not yet fallen into their new name. 

We are invited to surrender to reality within a fortress for messy creations, wrestlers who don’t yet have answers, children of messy ancestral creation stories, collapsers of kingdoms, imaginers of new ones. I came away from the excavating of this psalm with a prayerful version of it that I now carry within myself:

May I surrender to reality in order to actively wrestle (within myself and in the world) toward divine relationship with reality’s Source.

May I acknowledge what is true in order to respond with the next right action that will increase my right relationship and proximity (and the proximity of my community) to the divine Source of creation. May each of next right actions propel this world toward the one to come.

Parshat Vayislach: Jacob Wrestles Into New Being

This is my favorite week of parsha study, because Parshat Vayishlach is my favorite Torah portion. It inspired my final essay for my conversion during my first round of studying, Jacob’s moments of wrestling and reunion are the reason I chose my name, Yaakov.

It’s been interesting to start the week thinking about surrender in Psalm 46 and then hold that recent internal wrestling while re-reading this moment of divine wrestling before returning home, coming full circle, following a complex life back to the first partner Jacob ever had, his brother.

The reunion itself is such a moment of surrender… “Family trauma, am I right? Let’s just be brothers, my guy.” (My imagining of one way it would go today.)

Perhaps they have both lived into a deep desire to just be who they were meant to be to one another, perhaps they’ve simply gotten too old for playing out the mechanizations of dysfunctional (if well-meaning) parents, or perhaps one of the myriad of other theories is the right take, but these moments are so relatable because we’ve all been Jacob in this moment in some way, and maybe that’s why that night earned him a name that all Jews carry.

I love it. I love Torah. I love Jacob. I love our messy, traumatized, complex ancestors. I love that I get to read this story over and over and I’ll never have to have the right answers, in the same way that my ancestors didn’t always have them.

I wish you a quiet, peaceful, fulfilling rest this Shabbat. Thank you for witnessing my wrestling.

Yaakov

Ps. Have you checked your #YearOfTorah on Sefaria? Here’s mine, and you can check yours here.

Shavua tov, lovely souls!

I have a little backlog of notes and art and things that have given me joy, so I’ve bundled them up for another email offering. November has been a rough month, some reasons personal and some collective.

The world is too much and it’s also perfection.

I spent the first two weeks of the month ill and unable to speak for about five days, an eye-opening new experience for me. I resurfaced and noted how overwhelming and also deeply missed the pace of daily life had been.

The world is too fast, too disconnected, too demanding, too stimulating, too unforgiving, and too miraculous not to be missed for the ways that life and the world transcend all of those excesses to create connection, inspiration, entertainment, and the unfathomable perfection of nature. I was lucky to get my first snowy Friday morning walk with a dear friend, so that I could be reminded of that last one.

Life is fucking relentless.

This is my my 20th year organizing my local folks for NaNoWriMo and this mug below was given to me by one of the local folks, Sean, and it’s just really perfect. Life is relentless, true in all of the tones in which that can be said. I am relentless too, relentlessly surviving, changing, wrestling, recuperating, challenging, and witnessing all of it. This crab embodies all of the attitude necessary to communicate the exhaustion of a relentless life and the chutzpah of living relentless through it. I’m channeling that vibe to get through the winter.

It’s been a rough month to be trans.

Ohio House Bill 454 is continuing to work toward a state registry of trans children, among other shitty, transphobic things. As I dread the meeting I have to have in next week with my kid’s school to address an entire semester of misgendering, while holding space for an almost entirely LGBTQ+ client load amid continued violence, and while also exist in my own experience in a red state intent on oppressing and othering every marginalized population that exists within its borders, I remembered making this some months ago as a quiet creative processing of my worry about the world we’re handing to new generations.

Where is your G*d?

I already shared my notes, but this is the Psalm 42 art from class with Lexi at The Torah Studio a few weeks ago. This psalm will remain a favorite, and I felt and heard so much hidden within its layers. The role of water / bodies of water that include OUR body of water in the text has been sitting with me since. The way I wandered into seeing our tears as parts of us trying to return to their source has made my relationship to my tears something slightly new, slightly more divine.

Ancestral wounding can never be carried by one person.

Took me a minute to finish my parsha study notes this week (working on multiple cool things at the moment!). I found myself really sitting with each of the people in this section of the formative family trauma narrative that is much of Torah and thinking about the way ancestors can lead us forward through the actions we wish to embody, and also the lessons they learned and mistakes they navigated on our behalf.

I feel angry with everyone involved as I read Toldot this time around, and I also feel a sobering understanding of everyone as well, which led me to reflective wrestling of my own. I’ve been taught in many ways over decades now to reach for ancestors who lived and died well. Sometimes the way an ancestor lives well isn’t to have lived perfectly, but to have f*cked around, then really, REALLY found out, then left that story where it’s needed in our collective memory.

May my own living well include learning what I need to from this terrible mashup of family woundings.

Latest doses of joy have been located!

My joy currently found riding my legendary Pokemon through Pokemon Violet during delightful virtual co-op sessions with loved ones. Hit me up if you’d like to catch ’em all with me. Here’s the kiddo and I posing for selfies in-game and giggling with the delight the whole time. I hope you also find sources of light, joy, and hilarity this week in a world that sometimes feels too heavy for bearing.

Sources of delight, good pondering, helpful information, or hilarity:

• Jay Smith’s “Gevurah Gevurah” comic is some of my favorite recent art, and had me thinking about balance as an ongoing process of returning excesses to their Source.
• My new answer for “When is Chanukah?” going forward. Exactly the right amount of cheeky while also being an accurate answer.
• I want to see more folks who endeavor to be seen as trans allies start to embody this exact energy, ASAP.
• Sophia, aka Maimonides Nutz, gave good Jewish art and good Jewish jokes this week and I’m always here for both.
• Looking to create ritual and reflection around Rosh Chodesh? Jewitches has your back with this really beautiful digital guide, which I insta-purchased upon sight (and did not regret it).
• If you’re in search of whimsy, A Daily Cloud gave very good cloud this week.
• Do you buy too many journals but remain perpetually in search of more? May Designs is having a sale that includes a longstanding favorite of mine, their classic notebook.

NaNo word count update as of this wee mailing: 43,890 words out of 50,000. Three-ish days left! I’m not doing the math on days until Chanukah until I’m done counting noveling days, so don’t ask. 😉

Thank you for letting me sit with you as you’ve wandered these musings. I’m rooting for and with you, as always.

Yaakov

Shabbat shalom! Yaakov here, coming to you with recent postings of mine, along with small, shiny nuggets I’ve gathered since I emailed last.

This week, my personal parsha musings (Parshat Noach, which includes the story of the flood and the covenant) build on the swirling imagery of the body of Hashem as water that predates the creation story, our study of Psalm 42 on Monday in Tehillim class, and a wonderful discussion in Torah study (both classes with The Torah Studio).

Here are my visual notes for both classes:

I just love the shit out of Bereshit. I love the expansive way these stories can be examined and turned and poked and how it encompasses the big stories, not just about the Jewish people but about all of life, all of everything, while also showing us the parallel evolution of the Eternal, a creator of creators who has freshly externalized the process of reflection and self-examination by making us in their image. What wild, enormous, complex stuff. I hope I never stop being mystified, inspired, and even infuriated by it.

___________________________

Other tidbits this week:

• It’s almost time for NaNoWriMo! If you have no idea what that is, I shared a bit about my long history of embarking on yearly November writing adventures.
• Nano (see previous bullet point) is the reason I can’t take ALL of these amazing-looking classes from UnYeshiva. Please take them for me and then tell me all about them.
• Hearing the definition of the word “sonder” read vulnerably left me in a kiddie pool of feels.
• Jericho blows my mind weekly, including this week’s edition of The World’ Oldest Book Club: “We Are One”
• Loving my recent discovery of A Queer Niggun Project on SoundCloud
• Did you know there’s Torah karaoke app? The Tanakh Read-Along app (iOS and Android) is a new discovery that I can’t wait to play with.

Wishing you a quiet Shabbat and a well-behaved week (the week, not you – go misbehave well and enjoy it) to follow it.

Yaakov

It’s Coming Out Day and I feel like I’ve come out a million times, but this year has a new layer, just like some others have along the way. I had so many words to say about the new layer that I also needed a new space in which to say it. Welcome to a spontaneously created email/bloggish situation.

A few years ago, when I came out as non-binary, I spent at least six months giving myself permission to fully embrace they/them pronouns, to drop a combo that really only accommodated others. It’s taken considerably longer to allow myself to even consider fully embracing a new name for this better understood version of myself.

For these past few years I’ve simply shortened my given name and made do, but as I grew closer and close to completing my conversion to Judaism, I suddenly had permission to think about a name for myself in another way: choosing my Hebrew name.

That process of pondering over these past several months allowed me to step into yet another new layer of being myself with a name that honored all of it… the Jewish me, the queer and gender expansive me, and the reclaimed me, no longer carrying labels given to me by people who brought me into the world but never understood or properly cared for me.

So. Yaakov Akiva is my Hebrew name, but also my name name. I’ve started quietly changing it here and there, giving friends permission to finally start using it after listening to my endless wrestling, and finally getting to share the gorgeous art some of them created for me and my name. (Thank you Jay and Leia! I love you both!) Look at these amazing creative works based on my new name:

The thing that made it infinitely less scary was navigating this year’s local High Holiday services as Yaakov, hearing my Rabbi introduce me as Yaakov when calling me to the bimah, and then my instinctive (!!!) turn to a loud whisper of “Yaakov!” by someone passing me a coveted recipe as I walked into Shabbat service Friday night.

I spent Elul cracking open wide enough to realize that the person I would be upon reassembly was ready for a new name, and the one I chose (Yaakov) reflects my desire to honor Jacob, one of the original wrestlers, one who also came out of his wrestling with a new name, whose role within his family was complicated and isolating, who carried a heavy responsibility within his lineage. I choose Akiva as well, partly for Rabbi Akiva, who began his Jewish studies at age 40, which is the age at which I found Judaism and began my own studies.

Seeing today’s date and others sharing their stories prompted me to finally name what has been a gradual emerging until now. I have wrestled enough. I have worried enough. I have taken each of my steps to this moment with great intention. I have turned and turned again the tapestry of reasons, and all that’s left to do is speak it clearly:

My name is Yaakov. Maybe it always has been. Maybe it finally is. Maybe it won’t be forever. But in this moment it is, and it feels like home.

Rooting for (and with) you,

Yaakov