I ran out of energy towards the end of #ShavuotLive yesterday, so I didn't keep up my running commentary... but because I don't want to forget some of the insights I gained from the experience, I thought I would share some reflections (post metaphorical "mountain top") from the last few hours of the program:

Hour #17 - I really liked this session by Chava Shapiro called ""G!d, Glitched: Spinoza and the Kabbalists," which served as a good introduction to Baruch #Spinoza, but also as a reminder of the ways that Spinoza's ideas might motivate us to reconsider what the future of #Judaism might look like.

Hour #18 - Danya Ruttenberg's session "Resilience Isn't A Solo Project: The Interdependence Lessons From Ruth" was helpful, particularly in how Danya highlighted the choice that Ruth had in insisting to Naomi that, "no, you can't do this alone. I'm not abandoning you." It really is all about inter-dependence.

Hour #19 - Raye Schiller & Antonia Lassar's session "Why is Gossip Good for the Jews? with the Yenta Podcast" was an absolute riot, illustrating yet again how ANYTHING can be #Torah, even stories about #poop. (and I'm not kidding about this)

Hour #20 - I missed this one

Hour #21 - #ArthurWaskow (yes, that Arthur Waskow)'s session "The Thunder on the Other Side of Sinai" was too beautiful and too tender to reduce down to a short summary, but I very much want to listen to this one again and to engage with the text he shared with us.

Hour #22 - I caught only parts of Miriam Terlinchamp's session "Celebrating our 2024-25 Judaism Unbound #Gerim (#Converts/Jews-By-Choice)" but the parts I heard were SO good, and I was very moved by the amazing people who are new Jews thanks to Judaism Unbound's "Judaism Inbound" program.

Hour #23 - I listened to Dan Libenson's session ("How to Choose Anything: Advice from Moses’s Father-in-Law") while I was biking to the Pride parade in OKC. It was a good listen, but I especially found it interesting that Dan argued that Moshe only followed part of his father-in-law's advice, but not all of it.

Hour #24 - I got to listen to only part of the final Siyum (closing session) because I was riding my bike in the OKC pride parade with my friends from the The Peace House OK, but this felt meaningful to me because a lot of my own understanding of Queer takes on Torah and Judaism has come by way of the Judaism Unbound podcast.

All together, I think I heard 17 of the 24 sessions. It was a good #Shavuot.

#JudaismUnbound

Tagging: @lexaphus

#ShavuotLive commentary for hour #16 - I really enjoyed this session from Rena Yehuda Newman, an experiential session called " Comix and Revelation: Drawing Nedarim (Vows) from Sinai"

My favorite parts of this session was getting to see some some pages of Rena's work, but also getting to do some fast comic making, using super-easy techniques that Rena showed us.

#Comics #Comix #Judaism #Torah #Shavuot #Mazeldon

#ShavuotLive commentary for hour #12 - The Torah of pregnancy was an interesting concept to me.

I had (wrongly) assumed that there was a great deal of good Jewish resources for people going through the pregnancy journey, but this session highlighted some of the ways that our often patriarchal Jewish tradition has neglected pregnancy itself as an important human experience.

#Shavuot #Judaism #Mazeldon

Running a little behind on #ShavuotLive commentary (I did sleep a little --- but left the zoom running in my sleep in the hopes I would get some #Torah inspiration by osmosis).

For hour #11 we heard from Martín Di Maggio (from the The Spinoza Havurah and Humanistic Judaism UK) who spoke about "An Unbound Siddur: How a Person-Centred Non-Theistic Siddur Is Coming Together"

I was obviously biased (I work often with Martin and am a big fan of his liturgy), but session in particular was a delight, especially see fellow participants in the session get to experience, for the first time, hearing non-theistic liturgy that fits the rhythmic structure of the traditional liturgy (making it possible to use traditional nusach and other tunes).

#HumanisticJudaism #Shavuot #Mazeldon #JudaismUnbound #Siddur #Liturgy #Hebrew

#ShavuotLive hour # 10 update - so glad this storm woke me up so o could catch part of.#BYOT (Bring your own #Torah)

#Mazeldon #Judaism

#ShavuotLive update for hour #5 - this idea of "Zionist realism" had my mind spinning - it's all about thr limits on what we believe is possible.

Also impressed that this diverse international gathering is handling talk about I/P so kindly.

#Mazeldon #Judaism

Hour 2 of #ShavuotLive features Keshira haLev Fife talking about the idea of revelation and its present-day relevance.

I'm of course feeling the need to "translate" the concept of "revelation" humanistically, which to me would maybe something along the lines of "inspiration."

Another interesting element of this presentation is that Keshira is bringing a good bit of disability Torah to the conversation, asking how it was possible for all of the people present at Sinaii, given the obvious disability issues that would have kept some from having direct contact with the divine, which raises a lot of interesting questions, including how the message might have been heard by the blind, how deaf people would have received the message, etc.

It is a very trippy take on Sinaii, which right now feels about right.

#ShavuotLive has started. I'll be giving commentary on the offerings of 24 hours of expanded #Torah learning on the Fediverse, Bluesky, and Facebook, which will be tagged with #Shavuotlive

You can join the fun here: https://www.judaismunbound.com/shavuot2025.

#Judaism #Mazeldon #JudaismUnbound