Rev. Chani's Blog

It was a Wednesday afternoon. I had taken the afternoon off to go down to the beach on a day when it isn’t crowded, because I wanted space and because my brain still gets overwhelmed in crowds.  So, there I am sitting on the beach, watching the waves, feeling the breeze, totally in the moment, […]

As this year’s Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) is approaching, I can’t help but think how intertwined October 7th is with the Jewish high holidays, both in the Gregorian and Hebrew calendars. In the Jewish Calendar, October 7th was on Simchat Torah (a holiday celebrating the Torah). In the Gregorian calendar, it will fall […]

Last Tuesday, September 3rd, we celebrated the new moon and the Hebrew month of Elul. Preceding the Jewish High Holidays and new year, Elul is a time of reflection. We pause to both take accountability of how we showed up the previous year, and we look ahead to contemplate and commit to how we want to […]

A few weeks ago, I wrote a reflection about intent vs impact. In that post, I shared a story about speaking at a synagogue and responding to a question about pronouns (you can read it here). A few days after I shared it, I received an email from the rabbi of the congregation where I […]

I pressed repeat, and the song began to play over and over again. I noticed tears streaming down from my eyes, onto my lips, into my mouth, and onto my chin. My heart ached. My throat felt like it had a stone in it. I reminded myself to breathe. I was listening to Kate Hudson’s […]

“Why should I care about which pronouns people use, why should I care about what you prefer to be called, why can’t I just assume?” Let me set the scene for you. I had been invited to speak about pronouns at a synagogue in Northern New Jersey during Pride month. We had just spent the […]