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This Sunday, at the Ethical Society in Philadelphia, Ritualwell goes offline to celebrate Jewish women writers with a special program called "Embodied Ritual, Embodied Writing." The very special woman who inspired the endowment of this program is a poet named Henny Wenkart. The Wenkart Writer-in-Residence program was established through Kolot: The Center for Jewish Women's and Gender Studies, at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.

I am invincible! I am woman! Hear me roar as I chuck, heave, and unclutter my life, determined to make space—for what, I’m not sure. 

When our culture is filled with messages that tell us we must be happy and to find a quick fix to deal with negative emotions, it can be difficult to work on cultivating genuine happiness. During the month of Adar and the holiday of

As I push the stroller along the bumpy paved path of the local park, I feel rare sunlight on my face after a long winter. The season seems to be hinting at changing, while the cold breeze reminds me it’s not spring just yet. I needed to go outside, to see the sun today. It was a gray and isolating winter, as I stayed home for many days with my beautiful new baby. He had been born premature in November, and the five weeks that he spent in the hospital were one of the darkest times of my life. Though my son’s health always progressed well throughout that period, we were in limbo.

Before going into a complex description of the building of the mishkan, the portable sanctuary in the desert, God instructs

The last thirteen years have been a journey for my husband Fred and me into a world that we knew nothing about before: the world of autism.

Fourteen years ago I accompanied Stephanie to meet with the rabbi of one of the synagogues in my hometown of Minneapolis. It was a unique experience for Stephanie, who lives with cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. It was the first time she had been in a synagogue since moving to the Twin Cities fifteen years earlier. 

We welcome your submissions on disability, in honor of Disabilities Awareness month.

I practiced mindfulness once before. In a group of five, we raised individual wrinkled raisins from table to tongues. Rotating the tiny mass about my mouth, my mind wandered between the dehydrated folds. A seeming heedless mess of raised twists and turns covered the raisin’s rough exterior. Biting down, the small yet complex raisin caught between my molars, a sweet juice poured out and over my waiting taste buds.

Sometimes, the hardest thing about observing rituals is not choosing or creating the rituals themselves: it’s about making time for them. We may be super well-intentioned. We may crave the mindfulness and connections that come with a ritually engaged life. But the hectic pace of everyday schedules have a tendency to get in the way of even the best intentions.