The FP Interview: Rachel Barenblat from Velveteen Rabbi

FP: Who is Rachel Barenblat of Velveteen Rabbi?

RB: I'm a writer, a lover of religion, a Jewish lay leader, a liturgist, a poet, a wife and daughter and sister, and a nonprofit administrator, living in a small town in rural western Massachusetts. I was born and reared in south Texas; I moved north and east for college, and never left. I live in a many-windowed house on a hill with my husband Ethan and a sweet and fierce little cat.

In the last several years, I've been a newspaper reporter, a bookstore employee, a newspaper editor (I spent two years running The Women's Times, a local monthly), a graduate student (I hold an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College) and, most recently, co-founder and executive director of Inkberry, a literary arts nonprofit based in North Adams. Inkberry's mission is to strengthen connections between writing and life, and create a space in which everyone can discover their voice -- which is actually quite consonant with my love of the blogosphere (where everyone can have a voice) and my love of ritualcraft (I want to empower people to take
their religious lives into their own hands and discover/express their unique connections with community, faith, and God).

FP: When and why did you start your Blog,Velveteen Rabbi?

RB: I started Velveteen Rabbi in October of 2003. I'd been working on a nonfiction manuscript about Jewish rituals, a combination memoir and how-to manual which attempted to interweave my personal story with background information on the round of the Jewish year and tips on writing one's own prayers and rituals. After working on the book for three years, I realized that the whole first draft was a "ladder" into the book -- which is to say, in the process of writing and researching it I'd learned enough to actually begin the work! I couldn't quite face
the thought of beginning a rewrite at that point -- I was tired of the solitariness of that process, and I wanted to be connecting with people and engaging in dialogue about religion in general and Judaism in particular -- so I figured, hey, why not start a blog? I hoped it would keep me thinking and writing regularly about Judaism, with the added bonus of conversation with readers.

FP: I sometimes make a something of a distinction between my “real
writing”and my Blog writing-- do you ever still think of it in that way? How does your Blogging relate to your other writing--your poetry and work with Inkberry for example?

RB: I tend to divide my writing into three categories. First, there's the poetry, which I do purely for the love of the words, the love of the craft, and the love of the poems. (I've been fortunate enough to have two chapbooks published over the last ten years, and I've got a pair of book-length manuscripts which I hope will see print soon, but I don't write the poems for fame or money -- I'd be pretty frustrated if I did!)

Second, freelance work -- which I do both to augment my income, and because I enjoy the challenges of taking a story assignment and making it comes to life. I have a regular newspaper column in one of the local papers the Berkshire Eagle, and I write periodically for magazines (most recently Berkshire Living, and Bitch Magazine-- that last was really fun because they let me write an article about female godbloggers.)

And in the third category is my blog. The blog doesn't earn me any dough, but I know that it has readers, and that's really exciting. Writing for a specific audience is different from writing for the anonymous (and possibly imaginary) masses. I definitely see an overlap between blogging and my work with Inkberry. Part of what's great about the blogosphere is that it enables everyone to have a voice, to speak up about the things they care about -- and that's essentially Inkberry's mission.

FP: What does the phrase Jewish Renewal mean to you? How do you create the space for spiritual growth in your busy life?

RB: To me, Jewish Renewal connotes a grassroots, from-the-heart movement to revitalize Judaism from within. It's "transdenominational," which means participants come from all over the Jewish spectrum; what we have in common is a deep and genuine desire to breathe new life into Judaism and to share our love of our tradition with others (especially the young generation, of whom I guess I'm a part). After writing that, I checked out the official Renewal statement of
identity and I stand behind everything the Aleph site says, too. :-)

As far as creating the space for spiritual growth in my life --There's a saying: "It's not the Jews who keep Shabbat, but Shabbat which keeps the Jews." I don't "keep Shabbat" in the traditional sense, at least not every week, but I try to life my life in a spirit which acknowledges the importance of Shabbat, of taking some time to rest, to breathe, to sanctify the passage of time, to focus on being a human be-ing instead of a human do-ing. I go to the weekly meditation minyan at my synagogue every Friday morning without fail, which is a great way to begin preparing myself for Shabbat (and a great guarantee that I'lltake at least an hour every week for contemplative practice), and I often attend services on Friday evening or Saturday morning. I go on retreat at Elat Chayyim a few times a year, which never fails to rejuvenate and revive me.

Beyond that, I try to make little spaces in each day and each week which keep me connected with God. I try to wake up every morning with the "modah ani" (morning blessing for gratitude) on my lips, even if I don't make the time for morning davvening every day. Before sleep I say the shema and list all the things I'm thankful for in the day that's ending, even if I don't make time for evening davvening every day. And these things really help.

And in a certain way, reading blogs has come to be part of my spiritual practice. I think dialogue is critically important, and the blogosphere is where a lot of my dialogue happens these days.

FP: I loved your post on Liberals and Conservatives. You asked: “Why is it that religious progressives seek interaction with, approval from, and common ground with religious conservatives, but not vice versa?” What kind of reaction do you get from conservatives, particularly calling yourself a Rabbi? Have you found any common ground? Given the depth of your spiritual commitment, do you really need approval from religious conservatives?

RB: I've actually gotten surprisingly good reaction from religious
conservatives; several regular commentors on my blog fit that bill, and to my great pleasure we've had fairly cordial conversations about our differences.

I try to be clear that I'm actually not a rabbi (that's the first line
in my "about me" page on the blog: ). I'm a lay leader, a liturgist, a professional m'saderet/celebrant -- but I don't have the training, education, or ordination of a rabbi. I have a ton of respect for rabbis, so I don't want to usurp a title I'm not entitled to! (That said, I do hope to become a rabbi someday. That's part of the reason for my blog title. You may remember the velveteen rabbit in the children's
book, whose mantra is, "when can I run and play with the real rabbits?" -- that's more-or-less how I feel about the rabbinate. It's definitely something I aspire to becoming.) So far, no one's given me a hard time about my tongue-in-cheek blog title.

I think common ground exists between the religious left and the religious right. We share a love of God and (when we come from the same tradition) a love of Judaism, and I try to stay focused on that when I'm engaged in conversation. Obviously we also have a lot of differences -- we probably define "God" differently, we probably have different political perspectives, we probably have different attitudes about interfaith dialogue (not to mention interfaith marriage) -- and it's easy to get bogged down in our differences, at which point conversation can grind to a halt.

Do I really need approval from religious conservatives? Increasingly I'm feeling like I don't, though it's always nice when people approve of my work. (Hey, as enlightened as I'd like to claim to be, I still enjoy the ego-boost now and then!) But the more I learn about Judaism, and the more active I become in my congregation, the more clear it seems that my path is a legitimate one and that my work is relevant and useful. That's a good feeling.

FP: Your Blog sometimes rewards the reader with aphorisms of stunning beauty.

RB: Thank you!

FP: One that sticks in my mind is: “Holiness is something we both make and find.” Can you expand on that just a bit?

RB: I've been fortunate enough to have some really transcendent moments in my life, in which I felt a clear and palpable sense of holiness --
watching salmon dart under the bow of a kayak in Glacier Bay, standing under the chuppah with my soon-to-be-husband, prostrating myself during the great Aleinu during the High Holidays, singing and dancing in prayer at Elat Chayyim. I think of those as moments of "found holiness" (kind of like a found poem!), when I'm presented with something so beautiful and so clearly holy that it elevates my consciousness and fills me with joy. I think one of the most interesting challenges of the religious life is maintaining a sense of connection with holiness, and with God, in the *rest* of one's life. It's easy to feel connected with God at a moment
of ecstatic peak, but building and holding on to a sense of holiness while standing in line at the grocery store...? That's the real test, and I spend a lot of time thinking about how to do that. One way to make holiness, I think, is to make an active commitment to approaching the world mindfully; to create a space in one's life in which holiness can arise.

FP: You wrote that you got hate mail when you wrote a post supporting gay rights--why do you think people react so vehemently on this
particular issue?

RB: I think some folks have invested a lot of emotional energy in a
particular understanding of gender and sexuality. The old paradigm feels safe and comfortable, and (according to some people's understanding of Torah) it's The Only Right Answer There Is. So naturally they feel troubled, and maybe threatened, by people like me who want to change that status quo.

I can appreciate how strongly the anti-gay-marriage folks feel, because I feel equally strongly in the other direction. I continue to hope that those who oppose it will come, in time, to see that offering gays and lesbians the chance to marry doesn't harm the "institution of marriage" -- on the contrary, it enhances it, by allowing more people to sanctify their lives through connection with one another.

FP: I’m sorry I can’t come up with a more artful way to pose this
question, but, as a devout modern Jew, do you ever feel intimidated or threatened by the extreme Christian Right? If so, in what ways do you experience this frustration?

RB: I've never felt intimidated or threatened by the extreme Christian Right, but I do often feel frustrated by them. One of the fundamentals
of my religious point of view is that we're all entitled to our own way of interpreting Scripture, but the extreme religious Right doesn't tend to honor my interpretations or my perspective. They devalue my religious identity, and I don't appreciate that.

I'm also a strong proponent of maintaining a boundary between church and state (not least because I don't belong to a "church" per se), and I'm wary of the segment of the extreme Christian Right which seems to want the United States to be a Christian nation. I'm troubled, too, by the notion that some members of the extreme Christian Right support Jews making aliyah to Israel because they hope the ingathering of exiles will bring about the End of Days. That's so far from my attitude and my understanding of the world that I find it almost impossible to respond to!

That said, there are also times when I find myself on the same "side" as the Christian Right. United States Senator Sam Brownback has been leading the U.S. Senate in awareness of the tragic genocide taking place in Darfur, Sudan (see Passion of the Present), an issue which is important to him specifically because he's part of the Christian Right. Senator Brownback and I disagree on a lot of things, but I have to appreciate how his religious faith has led him in some directions I also consider
important.

FP: Who are your favorite thinkers and writers in the area of politics, religion and theology?

RB: As far as books are concerned, a few titles that I really like are:

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi's "First Steps to a New Jewish Spirit"

Rabbi Arthur Waskow's "Down-to-Earth Judaism: Food, Money, Sex, and the Rest of Life"

Rodger Kamenetz's "The Jew in the Lotus"

Rabbi Marcia Prager's "The Path of Blessing"

Annie Dillard's "Holy the Firm"

Wendell Berry's "The Art of the Commonplace"

When it comes to politics, I enjoy reading Molly Ivins (I've been an
off-and-on subscriber to The Texas Observer, , for some years, since I grew up there) and I always read Tikkun magazine as soon as it
arrives in my mailbox.

Blogwise, I'm a big fan of Real Live Preacher , Kinesis
,and Baraita
, among many others. When I'm looking for a political fix I read Head Heeb and WorldChanging .

FP: Many people feel frustrated by both the perception of religious
people and the Bush Administration--what can they do to change things?

RB: I think the most important thing is not to let frustration sour into despair. There's always something we can do. One of my favorite quotes (from Pirke Avot, a collection of rabbinic wisdom) is "it is not incumbent upon us to finish the task, but neither are we free to refrain from beginning it." I remind myself of that often when I'm thinking about the political sphere. I think we on the religious left need to speak up more. It's easy for the mainstream public to assume that "religious" means "on the right," and that's a fundamental misconception which will only be cleared up if we make ourselves heard. I wish there were more lefty religious blogs out there, particularly in the Jewish corner of the blogosphere.

I applaud my friends who feel called to work in politics, and I think what they do is incredibly important. But those of us who don't do that kind of work still has a role to play in reshaping public discourse and civic life. Read voraciously! Write letters to the editor and op-ed pieces! Blog up a storm! Teach a class, give a talk, and get people connected with one another.

I also applaud my friends who have chosen to make religious practice
their prime focus. My friend Andi is heading to a Buddhist monastery in Korea in a few weeks to begin the
ordination process, and I admire her commitment to monasticism. I've always thought that working to heal the world needs to happen both in an internal way (through study, prayer, meditation, etc) and an external way (through staffing soup kitchens, sheltering the homeless, agitating for political and economic change). Each of us has to find her/his own balance between those two modes of being in the world.

FP: Are there a couple of posts you are most proud of?

RB: My essay about my first experience serving on the chevra kadisha, the group of volunteers which prepares the bodies of the dead for burial:
Facing Impermanence


My post about where I hope the future of Judaism will take us (e.g.
away from hyperfocus on the "big three" political issues of 20th-century
American Judaism), written for the Arrival Day blogburst last year:

Moving Beyond the Big Three http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2004/09/moving_beyond_t.html

I also really like my write-up of the week I spent taking a class from
Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, at Elat Chayyim: A Week with Reb Zalman at Elat Chayyim