Hello there,

I hope that this first week of Elul have been meaningful in whatever ways you’ve hoped for.

The practice that my friend Leia and I have been exploring for the first time this year has been magical for me so far, and while I don’t have capacity to share any of it as daily fully-fleshed out offerings, I want to share the past week as a launch point if you were intrigued by the idea I shared last week but don’t know where to start.

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 first 7 names we’ve explored so far, and what grew from that exploration 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.

Atik Yomin — עַתִיק יומין  The Ancient One

• Have I considered the long term impacts of my choices and behavior? 
• Have I reached for available wisdom in order to take action that connects to long range efforts, such as collective liberation or personal work in healing my lineage?
• How will I carry a reverence for eternity as I continue to navigate my chapter of an ancient collective story?
• I ask Atik Yomi to help ground me in a timeline much longer and greater than myself.

Nishmat Kol Chai –  נִשְׁמַת כָּל חַי  The Breath of All Life

• How have I allowed my breath, shared with All, to ground my movement through life? Do I remember to breathe?
• Have I used my portion of collective breath well, through right actions and words, and taking only my share of space in any room? 
• How do I want to use my breath in the coming year?
• I ask Nishmat Kol Chai to hold me in the breath of the collective, reminding me that I am not alone.

El Nistar — אל נסתר –  The Hidden One

• How have I worked to unearth what I needed to know in the past year? What revelations have resulted from all that I’ve discovered?
• Have I carefully held and been worthy of trust in my relationships? Do I hold carefully the hidden and tender parts of myself and others?
• Do I allow revealing to happen in its own time? Do I avoid dragging to the light what is not yet ready to emerge?
• I ask El Nistar to build my strength and trust through holding me from a hidden place, secure even in the Face most hidden from me.

Rachmana — רַחֲמָנָא – Compassionate One

• Have I remembered to fuel my capacity for giving grace with a gentle compassion for self?
• Do I reach for the gentle embrace of a compassionate G-d? Do I look for a gentle face as often as I look toward a fiercer, bolder face of G-d?
• I ask Rachmana to offer me both compassionate holding and the capacity hold others with the same divine grace.

OsehHaShalom — עוֹשֶׂה השָׁלוֹם- Maker of Peace

• Do I reach toward a divine presence capable of making peace with my own willingness to contribute toward its creation, both internally and in the world?
• Have I contributed toward a goal of peace in my personal, spiritual, and community-based practices, thereby embodying the Peacemaker?
• I ask Oseh HaShalom to weave within me a roadmap toward a kind of peace that starts in the work of building a community that creates and protects its member’s internal peace, including mine.

Ehyeh — אֶהְיֶה‎ – Becoming

• Have I worked toward betterment of myself and the world, while remembering that both are never complete? Do I fuel myself for labor that doesn’t end, but is always changing?
• How can I reach for the grounding momentum of navigating an existence that has always been in a process of becoming? Can I allow that constant, deeply divine motion to release me from a need to be “complete?”
• I ask Ehyeh to help me embrace and root deeply within the constant motion that is life.

HaMakor — המקור – The Source

• Do I look for the roots when I am unsure of myself, of a right choice, of the heart of a matter? Am I willing to dig for all that I need to know?
• Am I willing to create what is not yet available to me, when it is possible? Do I embody Source by being a part of something new?
• I ask HaMakor to help guide me toward the deep inner source that feeds my roots and allows me to be a powerful source in the image of The Source.

I’ll share again some 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)

I mentioned last week that part of my Elul practice is also tzedakah, and I’ll share the places toward which I’m aiming my 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 8 is Yedid Nefesh, or the Soulmate / Soul Friend.

Wishing you a meaningful week 2,
Yaakov

Hi there!

I hope you’ve been well since I last pestered you during the counting of the Omer. It was absolutely amazing to share this year’s counting with so many people through an offering that you all received with so much love. It leaves me excited for all of the Omer counting seasons to come!

I’ve long wanted to find a similar practice for the month of Elul, but I’ve never landed on my practice, one that feels right in the way that counting the Omer does. I love blowing the shofar, I’ve spent some time with Psalm 27, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of different offerings each year, but my personal practice hasn’t fully solidified.

This year, in musing about the month and past practices, I mentioned off-hand to my dear friend Leia that I’d been toying with the idea of reflecting on one of the names of G-d for each day of Elul, looking at my relationship to that face of G-d, how well I’ve embodied those traits in my life over the past year, and how I might better embody that face of G-d in the coming year.

Things took off from there, and we’re doing the thing! I think that this year will result in something that we’d like to offer others, but for this year I just want to offer the idea and welcome you to incorporate it into this month in any way that resonates for you.

Here are some other ways that I connect with this time of year, if you’re looking for ideas:

• 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 (hoping to make it to these!)
• Daily creative prompts from Jewish Studio Project (delivered to your inbox each day)

There are dozens of amazing offerings, and if there are practices you’ve come to love, I would welcome hearing about them. I may be sharing my process with the daily name reflections along the way, probably on Instragram if I do, but as this is new, I don’t want to promise a fully fleshed offering. Maybe in 5785!

I also wanted to share the news that my art was selected for the 5785 edition of the Radical Jewish Calendar and I’m honored and excited to be a part of this year. If you haven’t already ordered yours, go snag one! This year, 18% of sales are going to Palestinian-led organizations and movement work.

This is my piece, which was chosen for the month of Sivan:

My caption/note that accompanies the piece:

This piece is an attempt to honor a powerful Palestinian voice, one of many voices witnessing their people’s truth at a volume that refuses to allow the world to look away from genocide and an occupation that must come to an end. Bisan’s statement should not be a revolutionary idea, but it is worthy of a revolution. Sivan is a time of preparing to receive Torah, of gathering wisdom. Can we ever fully step into wisdom when we are not all free?

I hope that Elul contains gentle wisdom that carries each of us safely and firmly toward not just the upcoming year but a better world to come.

Chodesh tov,
Yaakov

originally shared via the newsletter

Hello!

The print copy of the Omer Reflections Coloring Journal is here! I’ve already made several trips to drop off piles of packages and I’m so grateful for the love that this offering has already received.

• If you want a print copy, you can order it here.

If you’re looking for other Omer counting resources or you’d like to count in community, I’m launching a tiny seasonal Discord server for folks to share along the way, ask questions, remind each other to count, and just meet other Jews.

The server will be seasonal in the sense that I will turn it off/archive it after Shavuot, so that it’s not one more social setting you’ll need to tend outside of this time of year. I’ll host some quiet evening coloring sessions here and there, and there are rooms for coexisting in different ways (no audio body-doubling, audio-only live chatting, text chats, and even recorded voice messages with a bot to transcribe for better accessibility).

• If you’d like to join, hop over here.

Wishing you all as much ease in the days leading up to Passover as is possible in the world in which we live.

Things I’ve found useful or worth noting in some way recently:

• Jewish Prayers for Gaza – found through Tzedek Chicago’s services and have reached for these often during the week
• Pillar of Fire Haggadah – this is a beautiful offering for Passover, and I’m lucky to have some pages from the Omer Reflections Coloring Journal featured in it.
• Gashmius Haggadah Companion – another beautiful Passover offering
• Omer Calendar of Biblical Women – I preordered this and it’s a really gorgeous book, psyched to add it to my already sizable Omer counting book collection.
• Radical Jewish Calendar 5785 – There’s a call for artist submissions and the deadline is this Sunday!
• JVP’s “Passover During a Genocide” – “JVP has compiled these offerings so we may continue the sacred work of mobilizing to end genocide and apartheid — and of building an expansive practice of Judaism beyond Zionism.”
• A Shulchan Orech Pledge for Passover – “This year, we will not fulfill the requirement of Shulchan Orech by eating a festive meal while the weaponized starvation of the Palestinian people is taking place.” Actions to take and resources.

Wishing you an early Shabbat Shalom,
Yaakov

Hey there,

It’s been a long while. 2023 attempted to fling this Jew off of a COVID cliff, but after several months in a forced-then-self-imposed cocoon I am reemerging, upgraded from chronically ill to disabled, sporting new diagnostic answers like badges on a scout sash, and garbed almost constantly in t-shirts that flip the bird literally or figuratively at something.

I have clearly maintained a sense of humor. Just ask my sticker and t-shirt collections.

It’s hard to know what to share to bring this newsletter into the present. I won’t try to pull all of you through every notable point in time since my last ramble, but here are some of the highlights:

• I completed a second year of counting the Omer and really clinched my identity as an Omer Jew. Last year’s process was really an anchor during a time when I needed it, and my crew of counting comrades grew in number in a really great way.
• We added a second fur buddy to our family last summer. His name is Romeo and he is a very sassy gentleman. He has an uncanny ability to know when I need to sit down despite having no training as a service dog whatsoever, and he sits very still for his priestly blessing on shabbat.
• I recent left my local synagogue, which was a really difficult decision, and then I shared about it, which was really scary but resulted in overwhelmingly supportive DMs and comments, proving that sometimes saying the vulnerable stuff is what confirms we’re not even close to alone. The experience also gave me hope for what future Judaism looks like and how many of us want to get there.
• I designed and launched fundraiser apparel on Bonfire that generates funds for the Rachel Corrie Foundation. That offering is up and running indefinitely, and my tee and sweatshirt have both held up well, quality-wise, even with frequent wear.

• I recently had some creative content and my recently created custom digital Hebrew font chosen for inclusion in Pillar of Fire, a haggadah I’m excited to be a part of. Pre-orders are open now for this resource that will help some of us navigate Passover in really meaningful ways. My very talented friend Jay is featured as well!

So, those are the highlights I can think of over the past year. On to the big thing.

The last thing isn’t a thing to catch up on… it’s a NEW THING. I really wanted to create an offering for counting the Omer this year and everything has aligned in time for me to be able to really focus on it for the past few weeks and actually launch this year, thanks to a new connection with Pushcart Judaica (more on that to come as we get things up and running).

I’d like to introduce you to…

The Omer Reflections Coloring Journal.

I am REALLY excited to share an Omer counting resource after two years of making friends, art, and new realizations about myself and my Jewishness every year between Passover and Shavuot.

I’ve tried to include some primers, nods to the resources that I’ve enjoyed, artwork and written reflection from my own Omer counting, space for creativity (coloring pages!) and room for note-taking.

There are also two extra ways to buy the digital version that allow you the option to share the digital files with 3 or 4 friends, encouraging that folks create a chevruta vibe and build community through counting.

Alllllll of the info on this offering can be found here, including a link to purchase a copy if you’re so moved.

The digital copy is available right now and the print copies will be available for sale very soon, copies likely shipping this weekend and next week!

If you stick with me here in this email space, I’ll be sending out some digital Omer counting goodies from the journal every week so that everyone can have a little something to spark continued counting throughout. I’m mulling over some additional ways that we can connect while counting as well. Stay tuned!

Let’s count, color, create, and communicate when the time comes! More soon.

L’shalom,
Yaakov