Owner of Ma'yan Tikvah - A Wellspring of Hope
Rabbi Katy Z. Allen is the founder and leader of Ma'yan Tikvah - A Wellspring of Hope, a congregation without walls that meets outdoors all year long. She is the co-convener and President pro-tem of the Boston-area Jewish Climate Action Network, and the founder of the One Earth Collaborative, a program of Open Spirit in Framingham, MA.
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Day 49 of the Omer
On this last day of counting the Omer, this seventh day of the sixth week, which gives us seven full weeks, we consider Malchut in Malchut - Leadership in Leadership, the ultimate in leadership. Tonight, or some clear night soon, I invite you to step outside, lie down on the ground on your back, and look up at the stars. When you do, you will see celestial bodies that have been where they are for billions of years. You will gaze at a ...
Day 48 of the Omer
On this penultimate day of counting the Omer, we consider the attributes of Y'sod in Malchut, Bonding in Leadership. When we look up at the sky on a clear night, we see a milky section of the expanse of stars, what we have dubbed the Milky Way, which we all know contains no milk and is not a candy bar! It is, rather, our view of the galaxy in which we live - a rotating group of gases and dust and hundreds of billions of stars ...
Day 47 of the Omer
Today we reach the fifth day of the seventh week, and we focus on Hod in Malchut, Humility in Leadership. In gazing at the stars, we often see "stars" that are not really stars. At times, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn shine in the evening, night, or early morning sky near the horizon, and to the naked eye they look exactly like bright stars. In fact, these "stars" are planets, and the light they seem to give ...
Day 46 of the Omer
On this fourth day of the seventh week of counting the Omer, we turn our thoughts to Netzach in Malchut, Endurance in Leadership. Our Sun is a star, and by star standards it is no big deal. There are many other stars that are similar to it. But for those of us here on Earth, it is the Sun that counts, it is the Sun that makes life possible. One could say that the Sun is middle-aged. It is about 4.5 billion years old, and ...
Day 45 of the Omer
Today we consider the Divine Attributes of Tiferet in Malchut - Harmony in Leadership, as we reach the third day of the seventh week of the Omer. The stars are in the sky all the time, during the day and at night, we just can't see them during the day because the light of our star, the Sun, is so bright, not because it is so big, but because it is so close to us, a mere 93 million miles, or 8.2 light-minutes, away. Only at night ...
Day 44 of the Omer
On this second day of the last week of counting the Omer, we focus on Gevuarh in Malchut - Restraint in Leadership. The amount of energy involved in the Big Bang was so unbelievably huge as to be beyond our comprehension. Today, the brightest events in the sky - those releasing the most energy - are supernovae, or exploding stars, which also involve an unfathomable (though significantly smaller) amount of energy, so much energy, in ...
Day 43 of the Omer
Today we begin the last week of counting the Omer, and all during this week, as we count the last seven days until Revelation, we focus on Malchut - Leadership, beginning with Chesed in Malchut, Lovingkindness in Leadership. And this week we focus on the stars. When we look into the night sky, we see only a tiny fraction of the stars in our galaxy, and there are billions of other galaxies out there that we also can't see, each of ...
Day 42 of the Omer
As we reach the end of the fifth week of counting the Omer, we focus on the Divine Attributes of Malchut in Y'sod, Leadership in Bonding. As I walk through the woods today, I am suddenly struck by the dead trees. They are dead, certainly, and yet they are home to so much life. Most readily visible are the bracket fungi I see on some, forming small shelves all the way up the still-standing tree trunk. In one place, I see the ...
Day 41 of the Omer
On this sixth day of the fifth week of counting the Omer, we consider Y'sod in Y'sod - Bonding in Bonding. Some trees are covered with large, bright, decorative blossoms in the spring - magnolias, flowering dogwoods, cherry trees, flowering crab apples. These and others we plant in our yards and parks so we can enjoy their showy blooms. We plant oaks and maples and beeches for shade and spruce and fir for their gracious ...
Day 40 of the Omer
On this 40th day of the Omer, we focus on the Divine Attributes of Hod in Y'sod, Humility in Bonding. Every year that a tree grows, a new layer or ring of wood forms around the trunk, just under the bark. A tree generally produces one layer of wood each year, comprised of two rings of slightly different colors. The light-colored section is the spring and summer growth. The darker, denser wood is the fall and winter ...
Day 39 of the Omer
On this 39th day of the Omer, we reflect on Endurance in Bonding - Netzach in Y'sod. The fall foliage in New England is stunning. Bright reds and oranges and yellows take one's breath away. In the Midwest, where oaks predominate, the colors are more subdued - yellows, yes, but softer shades of burgundy, salmon, and coral, and much less commonly the brilliant scarlet, crimson, and tangerine that we see here. But no matter what ...
Day 38 of the Omer
On this third day of the sixth week of the Omer we focus on Tiferet in Y'sod, Harmony in Bonding. Biomes are large geographical areas of the world, each with distinctive plants and animals that are adapted to the particular climate and geography of the area. Forest biomes include tropical forests, temperate forests, and boreal forests, also known as the taiga. I love these words: boreal, taiga. Boreal - of or pertaining to ...
Day 37 of the Omer
Today we consider the Divine Attributes of Gevurah in Y'sod, Restraint in Bonding, as we count the 37th day of the Omer. I think of the majestic redwoods of the Pacific coast. They are so tall that it is impossible to see their crowns, and some are so big around that a car can drive through the middle. How do water and nutrients climb to the top of these trees? I think of early spring in New England, and the buckets - or plastic tubing - ...
Day 36 of the Omer
Today we begin a new week, the sixth week of counting the Omer, and for this first day of the week we consider Chesed in Y'sod, Lovingkindness in Bonding. During this sixth week, trees will provide our inspiration, beginning with oak trees. Growing up in the Midwest, I learned about "oak openings." Oak openings occurred as a result of fires that in the past regularly swept across the prairie land of southern Wisconsin, where I lived ...
Day 36 of the Omer
Today we begin a new week, the sixth week of counting the Omer, and for this first day of the week we consider Chesed in Y'sod, Kindness in Bonding. During this sixth week, trees will provide our inspiration, beginning with oak trees. Growing up in the Midwest, I learned about "oak openings." Oak openings occurred as a result of fires that in the past regularly swept across the prairie land of southern Wisconsin, where I ...
Day 35 of the Omer
On this last day of the fifth week of counting the Omer, we experience Malchut in Hod - Leadership in Humility. The majestic mountains of the Himalayan Range; the tiny particles of silt that settle to the bottom of a slow-moving river. They are so different in size, but they are both part of this One Earth. They are both part of a slow-moving cycle of change in rocks that has been going on since the formation of the planet. They are ...
