Rabbi Yael Levy

The wellspring rising from deep within the Mystery. The rock that supports, sustains and brings forth our lives.

Yesod calls us to feel ourselves grounded in the Mystery and to feel the Mystery rising within us. Yesod calls us to encounter the fire, the sacred sparks at the core of...

What is it that calls us forward,
To lift our eyes
And see that everything is possible?
Just for a moment to feel a strength beyond ourselves,
A love beyond ourselves,
And imagine we can step into the river
And change its...

Whose gaze am I willing to meet?
     Certainly the azalea bushes,
     Ablaze in yellow and red.
Absolutely the cherry blossoms
Whose pink and white petals remain luminescent even as they fall.
And the lilacs give me no choice
Their scent reaches out
...

Yesod sh'b'Gevurah
Foundations of Strength
The 13th day of the Omer

Let's go as deep as we can
Into the hard ground,
Softened now by shoots of green
And delicate white flowers.

Let's go as far as we can
Into the earth
...

The Counting of the Omer is the ancient Jewish ritual of blessing and counting each of the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot.

The counting began as an agricultural ritual. Our ancestors would pray for an abundant spring harvest by waving a sheaf, an omer, of barley toward the night...

The first ritual the Israelites ever enacted, the rite of passage that prepared them to leave bondage in Egypt, is one that can be re-imagined every year to guide us in discovering who we are and who we might become.

In Exodus, 12:3: God says to Moses, "Speak to...

Last Yom Kippur, for the first time in 17 years as a rabbi, I did not lead services. Instead, on my sabbatical, I experienced Yom Kippur alone in the back country of Canyonlands National Park in Southeast Utah. My fast was not from food and water but one of presence....