Tag: poetry

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CCAR Press Passover Pesach Poetry

‘Elijah Is with the Hostages’ and ‘Our Story’: Two Poems for Passover

Poet and liturgist Alden Solovy, a CCAR Press author, shares two poems for Passover:

At the end of the Passover Seder, people around the world say that we have told the tale, followed by “next year in Jerusalem.” Few, if any, actually act on that aspiration. In one sense, it is the impossible dream. We all—even those of us who actually reside here—aspire to live in the heavenly Jerusalem, the fantastic, archetypal dream of Messianic wholeness and peace, with the word of God radiating into all of existence. And our story is far, far from completed. I offer this, then, as a new aspiration to add to the end of our Seders. It is, in part a response to October 7, in part a call to remember the long arc of our history. My suggestion: say this prayer-poem followed by “next year in Jerusalem.”

Our Story
Our story is not complete.
Oh no.
There will be more highs
And lows,
But the ending,
Oh my,
Will be tremendous.
This is faith.
Faith knows
That our story is not complete,
And the ending
Is beyond
All our hopes
For joy and wonder.

Elijah Is with the Hostages
Elijah,
The prophet who will announce salvation and peace,
Will not visit your Pesach Seder this year.
Don’t fill the cup. Don’t waste the wine.
The prophet is exhausted,
Pleading with the heavens for the hostages
Pleading the heavens for the displaced,
The grieving and lost.

Find hope in your own hands,
In deeds of repairing the world
And acts of lovingkindness.

Elijah is not coming to your Seder.
The work of healing the world,
And bringing redemption,
He has left to us.


Alden Solovy is a liturgist and rabbinic student based in Jerusalem. He is the author of This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day, This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine in Poetry and Prayer, These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah, and Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe, all published by CCAR Press. His poetry can also be found at ToBendLight.com.

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Books CCAR Press Poetry

‘Planting Evermore’ by Rabbi Heather Miller

CCAR Press and Women of Reform Judaism have copublished Covenant of Justice: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations from Women of Reform Judaism. This powerful collection amplifies the voices of female, nonbinary, and genderfluid contributors, addressing vital topics such as racial equity, climate justice, gender equality, and reproductive rights. Grounded in the Jewish value of tikkun olam (repairing the world), the book serves as both an inspiring resource and a call to action.

In this excerpt from the volume, Rabbi Heather Miller shares her poem, which presents planting as a metaphor for tikkun olam.

Planting Evermore

There is earth under my fingernails.
Just like the ones who came before me
and those who came before them as well.

We are a people who work the land.
Tilling it with swing after swing of sharp objects
under the blazing sun.

We are committed to the blistering work,
dedicated to the process of opening things up.
Dedicated to transforming hardened land to
soft earth ready to receive seeds. The seeds
of all that we wish to grow. Seeds of compassion.
Seeds of intellect. Seeds of justice.

We tend the land knowing that it demands of us
the keenest of attention.
We remember when once something else got
in the way. And our labors were lost.
As if erased by entropy encroaching in.

And so we plow and till and plant and tend.
Diligently.
The seeds of compassion, intellect, and justice.
And we wait patiently for the fruits of our labors,
sweet peace, to ripen on the branch,
for all children to taste.

Rabbi Heather Miller is the founder of Keeping It Sacred, a global progressive Jewish community dedicated to exploring sacred Jewish texts, deep learning experiences, ritual practice, and the pursuit of social justice. She is a contributor to Covenant of Justice: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations from Women of Reform Judaism.

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CCAR Press Israel Poetry Prayer

El Malei Rachamim for October 7

Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar shares this poem to commemorate one year since the October 7 attacks. It is entitled El Malei Rachamim (“Merciful God”) after the traditional Jewish memorial prayer. CCAR Press has also put together a full collection of poems, prayers, and readings to mark one year since October 7. Download the collection here.

El Malei Rachamim

In blessed memory of you

hiding in the fields and bushes,
and the joggers out for a run,
and the moms and dads making breakfast for their toddlers in their kitchens,
and the parents in their safe rooms, holding the door handles for hours,
and the babies—innocent infants—and the grandfathers, and the grandmothers,
and entire families, parents watching their children die, children watching their parents,
and entire neighborhoods of young adults who were waiting to begin their lives,
and you, the brave, throwing hand grenades back out of the shelters without doors
over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again,
and you, the courageous, who ran towards the carnage to save who you could over again,
and you who were trapped in hundreds of incinerated cars,
and the fathers who frantically drove from the north to find their children
who cried, Abba, they are near, and I’ve been shot, find me,
and the friends who escaped but returned to rescue their friends and were killed,
and you who were raped and maimed and mutilated,
and you, who danced as the sun rose and will never see another sunrise and never dance again,
and the hostages stolen, beaten, tortured, starved, kept in dark tunnels and family homes,
and killed cruelly in captivity,
and the young women who stood guard on the towers over Gaza and who watched from screens
in darkened rooms showing us, warning us, and were ignored, and were slaughtered,
and the civilian guard who held the line to the last bullet without help for hours,
and the brave police who fought to the end, and the superheroes of the Israel Defense Forces,
valiant, brave lions of Judah…

Your lives were brutally taken on October 7, 2023 and in the relentless aftermath.
El malei rachmim, have compassion upon your souls,
El malei rachmim, have compassion upon our broken hearts.

Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar is Rabbi Emerita at Congregation B’nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim in Deerfield, Illinois. She is the author of Omer: A Counting and Amen: Seeking Presence with Prayer, Poetry, and Mindfulness Practice, both from CCAR Press.

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Books CCAR Press Poetry

Looking Forward, Looking Backward: Meditation on the Eve of a New Year

Alden Solovy is the author of Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe, now available from CCAR Press. As Rosh HaShanah approaches, we share one of Alden’s poems from the book for the new year.

Meditation on the Eve of a New Year

God,
We stand at the cusp of a new year,
Looking forward, looking backward,
So much accomplished,
So much neglected,
Gains and losses,
Joys and sorrows,
Victories and defeats.
A life.
My life.

You,
God of Old,
You are Steadfast Witness,
Source and Shelter.
I bend my heart to You,
Recalling all of Your gifts.

God,
For consolation in my grief,
For sunlight and midnight,
For hope in my celebrations,
For warmth and for shelter,
For current and tide,
For family and for friends,
For the flow of beauty and grace,
I bend my life back to You,
As the New Year descends,
In love and in service,
My offering
To Your holy name.

—
Alden Solovy is a liturgist based in Jerusalem. He is the author of This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day, This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine in Poetry and Prayer, These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah, and Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe, all published by CCAR Press.

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Books CCAR Press High Holy Days Poetry

Vulnerability During the Days of Awe: Alden Solovy on ‘Enter These Gates’

Alden Solovy is the author of Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe, now available from CCAR Press. In this excerpt from the introduction, he reflects on the meaning of the High Holy Days and how his book can deepen our experiences of this season.

What a strange thing we do each year at the High Holy Days: We put our own humanity on trial. We take an accounting of our souls precisely at the moment we celebrate the creation of the world and lift up the sovereignty of God. We take accounting of our own souls because the world needs us each at our best, because part of perfecting God’s world is healing ourselves. Even though we know that the world will offer us moments of challenge—like September 11 and October 7—we choose to look deeply at our lives again and again, year after year.

The High Holy Days can lift us on words of Torah and prayer to the heights of our best selves. The days also call forth the deepest moments of our vulnerability and pain. Our memories—joyous and painful—meet our hopes for the future. These are the days of our most intimate self- assessment. By design, our liturgy brings out our sorrows, our fears, and our vulnerabilities. Yet the intent—far from punishment or retribution—is to lift us toward our best selves. Repentance. Prayer. Charity. Confession. Forgiveness. We ask a lot of ourselves and our liturgy. Our liturgy and our tradition ask a lot from us.

These challenges led to the genesis of my new book, Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe. The volume has two purposes. The first is to serve as a source of new meditations for private use, a path to deepening our individual experiences of the Days of Awe. The second is as a new liturgical supplement to Mishkan HaNefesh: Machzor for the Days of Awe, which has been in use for more than a decade. Central to this book is the goal of helping clergy and congregations bring refreshed vigor and new voices into High Holy Day worship. Enter These Gates can also be used in conjunction with Mishkan HaLev: Prayers for S’lichot and the Month of Elul.

This volume offers more than one hundred new readings based on the core thematic elements of the High Holy Day liturgy. Some of the works are traditional in form and language, recognizable as riffs on particular prayers. Other prayer poems offered here blend traditional themes with storytelling, music-like interlude, or liturgical reframing.

My hopes are that:

▪ Rabbis and other clergy incorporate some of this work into High Holy Day worship, including S’lichot and Tashlich.

▪ Congregations place copies of Enter These Gates in their pews and prayer bookshelves so that congregants and participants can encounter this work in private prayer during services.

▪ Individuals use this volume during the month of Elul and the Days of Awe as part of their own personal journeys of High Holy Day preparation.

▪ Educators use this volume for supplemental prayer in religious school worship in the weeks leading up to the High Holy Days, as well as for teaching High Holy Day themes.

▪ Rabbis, clergy, and educators use Enter These Gates to teach about the High Holy Days in adult education and conversion classes.

The introduction to Mishkan HaNefesh asks, “Opening a prayer book on the High Holy Days, what do we hope to find?” If a machzor (High Holy Day prayer book) is successful, it goes on to say, “It leads us on a path across rough terrain.” Soul searching. Introspection. Mortality. Our shortcomings. Our beliefs. “It tests our spiritual stamina, and we do well to make use of imagination and memory.”

Although Enter These Gates is a book of prayers and meditations for the High Holy Days, don’t be fooled. It is really a mirror. A dream. A doorway. It is a book of imagination and memory, a book of challenges and warnings, a book of hopes and aspirations. It is a descent into fire and an ascent into secrets that rise to heaven.

Bless you on your journey.

Alden Solovy is a liturgist based in Jerusalem. He is the author of This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day, This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine in Poetry and Prayer, These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah, and Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe, all published by CCAR Press.

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Books CCAR Press

New Pathways to Classic Prayers: Alden Solovy on ‘This Joyous Soul’

Alden Solovy, author of This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, reflects on the goals behind the project, how worshipers can use his work in tandem with Mishkan T’filah, and how the book offers a sense of hope.

What inspired This Joyous Soul?

The book was inspired by my deep love of prayer, both as a form of creative expression and a path to connection with the Divine. Along with that, the book was driven by my desire to open new pathways into our classic prayers. The artistry of our prayerbook—Mishkan T’filah: A Reform Siddur—served as the backdrop and canvas for my writing.

This Joyous Soul is structured to reflect the morning service found within Mishkan T’filah. How can readers use it in tandem with the prayer book?

In key sections of Mishkan T’filah, the left-hand pages offer alternatives to the traditional prayers found on the right-hand page. This Joyous Soul was written as a source of new “left-hand pages,” offering new poetry, meditations, interpretations, challenges, reframings, and flights of fancy based on our classic prayers. You can use This Joyous Soul side-by-side with Mishkan T’filah to enliven your prayers. Rabbis can use these new “left-hand pages” in communal worship. The book can be used as a study text to deepen your understanding of our prayer tradition. My core hope, however, is that congregations will place copies of This Joyous Soul in prayer spaces alongside Mishkan T’filah. That is my vision and ultimately why I wrote the book.

The subtitle of This Joyous Soul is “A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings.” What does this mean to you?

Jewish prayer, throughout the ages, maintains a brilliant balance between the traditional themes, content, and tone of our centuries-old prayer book, while remaining open to new expressions of spirituality in each generation. This Joyous Soul is an exploration of our common, modern experiences—in life and in prayer—in dialogue with the age-old yearnings of our people. This Joyous Soul (which has the nickname “Joyous”) offers modern expression to classic prayers as handed down for millennia. Rabbi Sally J. Priesand explains this balance in her introduction to the book.

What was the most challenging part of writing this volume?

Prayer is an intimate, personal experience. At the same time, congregational worship is a shared, communal experience. I wrote Joyous to be both a doorway into deepening one’s individual prayer practice and a volume that would resonate so strongly with Mishkan T’filah that congregational rabbis would bring the book into prayer spaces, put it in the pews, and place it on the sanctuary bookshelf alongside the siddur. My goal—to write a volume of new prayers that could be used equally well both in private prayer and in communal worship—was the core writing challenge. This volume is the result.

How can this book speak to difficult times such as the one we’re living in now?

In a word: hope. Joyous is infused with hope for ourselves, our families, our congregations, the Jewish people, all peoples, the world, and the future. There is hope without end, from the opening to the close of the volume. There are prayers of gratitude, wonder, and renewal—all leading to hope. The prayer “For Peace in the Middle East” is one example. Yet let me quote the last stanza of the book, from a prayer called “Let Tranquility Reign”:

Let these prayers ascend

To the lofty heights,

So that the nations

And peoples of the earth

Will rejoice in holiness,

Will rejoice in splendor,

And will rejoice, together, in righteousness.

Sitting at my desk here in Jerusalem, worried about the future of Israel and the rising global tide of antisemitism, there is no balm more healing, no prayer more joyous, than the hope of a better world. To that, let us say, “Amen.”

Alden Solovy is a liturgist who made aliyah to Jerusalem in 2012. He is the author of This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day, This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine in Poetry and Prayer, and These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah, all published by CCAR Press.

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Books CCAR Press Poetry Torah

The Challenges of Writing Modern Midrash: Alden Solovy on ‘These Words’

Liturgist and poet Alden Solovy discusses the inspiration behind These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah, his writing process, and his hopes for the book’s impact.

What inspired These Words?

The language of Torah, its richness and nuance, begs not only for exploration, but for celebration in poetry. Throughout Jewish history, Torah has been our single greatest writing prompt for scholars, mystics, poets, musicians—all of us.

This is your fourth CCAR Press volume. How does it differ from your other works?

The previous volumes provide poetic liturgy. This book combines expository writing with poetic interpretation of Torah. I explore seventy words of Torah with deep dive essays into each word, followed by a poetic midrash inspired by that research.

What was the most challenging part of writing this volume?

Switching back and forth between left-brain Torah study and right-brain poetic interpretation was a constant challenge. What challenged me most, however, was the research. Each word is a universe, spectacular in depth and meaning. I felt compelled to keep learning and learning about each word.

How did you select the words in the book?

My selection process was more art than science. I began with a set of 120 words that interested me, supplemented by words suggested by friends. From there, the words themselves guided me to add, remove, or replace them, prompted by my explorations.

How did writing this book impact you?

Writing These Words was a profound and transcendent experience. I experienced what I can only describe as a “Torah trance” mind state. Intense. Beautiful. Challenging. Frightening. After the book was completed, I then faced my first post-writing melancholy. Later, rereading the book in print, I found an unprecedented joy and elation having written a volume of modern Torah midrash—I didn’t know that was in me. 

How do you hope These Words will impact readers?

Wouldn’t it be beautiful if reading this book inspired others into their own journeys of exploring words of Torah? I hope the book will be used in Torah study, for writing sermons, as part of interfaith dialogue, and as a source of readings used in worship. Most of all, I hope the book inspires more poetry rooted directly in learning Torah.

Alden is available to visit communities for speaker events and book clubs. For more information, please email bookevents@ccarpress.org.

Alden Solovy is a liturgist based in Jerusalem. His books include This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day, This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer, and These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah, all published by CCAR Press. Read more of his writing at tobendlight.com.

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CCAR Press Women in the Rabbinate

‘Let my people go that we may serve You’: A Poem in Honor of Rabbi Sally J. Priesand

This poem was commissioned by the Women’s Rabbinic Network in honor of Rabbi Sally J. Priesand, the first woman ordained as a rabbi in North America. It was written by Merle Feld, a pioneering Jewish feminist poet, and is featured in Feld’s new collection from CCAR Press, Longing: Poems of a Life.

Let my people go that we may serve You
For Rabbi Sally Priesand (HUC-JIR 1972) and Lisa Feld (HCRS 2023)

Remember girdles? Remember the anger
we weren’t supposed to show, or even feel? 
Remember sitting and waiting to say Bar’chu
as someone counted, Not one, not two . . .
The being invisible, the tears blinked back, 
fiercely. Remember the love, the innocence 
assaulted, hearing for the first time, those words,

and those words, and those, such words
in a holy book, demeaning me, you, us?
All these years later, I feel the pain, rising, 
constricting, afflicting. Remembering. Searching 
for a reason to stay: love is stronger than death.

Tears became anger—that word—the ultimate 
weapon. She’s an angry woman (so we can
ignore her, put her down, close our ears and hearts). 
Blessed be the allies, calling for the first time
from the bimah—Taamod! The ones who broke 
through the tight circles on Simchas Torah

and passed us a scroll to hold, to dance with.
The ones who said yes, yes, yes. And yes.
And we, the wrestlers—I won’t let you go
till you bless me. The lust, the longing, to learn,
to leyn, to lead, to bensch, to be counted, to be 
called, to locate our wisdom, to inhabit our power

and our tenderness, to build holy communities, 
fully and richly as ourselves, as Jewish women,
as rabbis—I won’t let you go till you bless me.
Now, and going forward, now, and for tomorrow,
My heart soars, it flies, it bursts. From Sally to Sandy,
to Sara, from Amy and Amy to Annie, to Ariel,

Deborah, Devorah, wave after wave after wave,
I see joyous throngs—there’s Rachel, and Hara, Jen,
Jamie, Jessica, Jan, and Kara. There’s Sharon, and Sharon, 
and Sharon! Too many to name—we’re just getting started! 
For so long, the world was unimaginable with you in it,

now, we cannot imagine a world without you.
We bless the work of your hands, we bless
the work of your hearts. We are blessed, to be here, 
still, just at the beginning.

Commissioned by Women’s Rabbinic Network in honor of Rabbi Sally J. Priesand

Merle Feld is an acclaimed poet, playwright, educator, and activist. Her previous works include her memoir A Spiritual Life and the poetry collection Finding Words.

Categories
Books CCAR Press Poetry Torah

From Imposter to Midrashist: Writing ‘These Words’

These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah was driven by imposter syndrome. Who am I, after all, to write a book teaching about the deeper meanings of the language of Torah? I’m not a rabbi. I’m not a Torah scholar. I have no Jewish day school foundation. I’m not a linguist or etymologist. I’m a poet-liturgist-lyricist. I write poems, songs, and prayers. Why, oh why, did I suggest this?!

So, I threw myself into the task of learning about individual words of Torah, often spending eight, ten, twelve hours a day in books, online, and engaging in conversations about Torah, Hebrew, Talmud, midrash, and the Sages, old and new. At times, the learning took me well beyond any text I’d previously encountered. The deeper I dug, and the further afield it took me, the harder I felt I needed to work.

Days became weeks. Weeks became months. Hundreds of hours learning Torah became thousands. Some evenings I’d dream about the words. Some mornings I’d wake with a poetic midrash spilling out of me. At times the learning led me to a poem. At times a new poem led me to a word of Torah. I entered some sort of Torah trance, which was thrilling and frightening.

When it was done—a first draft suitable for submission, anyway—I set it aside for a week in order to read it with “fresh eyes” before sending it to CCAR Press. The poems were beyond anything I’d ever written. And the divrei Torah on each Hebrew word looked completely foreign to me. How did I write that? Clearly, the work of learning how to study Torah at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies paid off.

In retrospect, the fact that CCAR Chief Executive Rabbi Hara Person, CCAR Press Director Rafael Chaiken, and the chair of the CCAR Press Council, Rabbi Donald Goor, trusted me to write this book is beyond my comprehension. Perhaps, if one day my work warrants a retrospective, some journalist may say something like, “Although his previous work was regarded and beloved, These Words was when he truly discovered his poetic voice.”

These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah is available for pre-order at thesewords.ccarpress.org.

Alden Solovy is a liturgist based in Jerusalem. His books include This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day, This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, and This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer, all published by CCAR Press. Read more of his writing at tobendlight.com.

Categories
CCAR Press Poetry

A Memoir in Poetry: Writing ‘Longing: Poems of a Life’

In this CCAR Press interview, Merle Feld, author of Longing: Poems of a Life, discusses her creative process, what sets Longing apart from her previous work, and what she hopes readers will take away from her pieces.

What inspired the creation of Longing?

It started with a single poem, “In the corner,” my earliest recollection. The entire book unfolded from that memory. It’s an innocent poem, the voice of a very young child, maybe age three. But then in the poem that follows, the child recalls memories which are painful, terrifying, anything but innocent. This first section of the book is the most difficult, because nothing matches the helplessness of a child.

How did you select which poems to include in the book?

As many more poems came to me, I eventually realized that the book had a shape—childhood; then adolescence, a treacherous time for a girl; young love, learning as a couple how to fight, pick up the pieces, grow together. A series of poems re-engaging with the four-day vigil as my mother was dying; poems capturing a succession of cherished friends, for me an endlessly fascinating and important subject. Next, some tales of the small town in which I’ve lived for the past twenty-six years. And finally, many facets, faces, of aging. In the end it turned out I’d written a memoir in poetry.

Longing engages with both painful and joyous moments from your life. What was it like to revisit these experiences?

The book is an ongoing conversation with myself that I hope will provoke conversations in my readers. I’m still in the midst of that exploration: though a book has gone to press and is out in the world, the inner conversations continue. I learn from my writing, find new wisdom, perhaps more peace, but the next question is not far behind. And after a rest, the next poem. Especially meaningful in this process are the many accounts of how Longing has fostered deep introspection and connections for readers, that the poems inspire them to reflect on their own life stories. Not why I wrote the poems, but why I published them.

What makes Longing different from your previous books?

Longing opens a vista acquired from decades of experience through the eyes and heart of a mature person seeking discernment, healing, summoning unprecedented courage. The parallels with and contrasts to my first book, A Spiritual Life (SUNY Press 1999; revised 2007), are striking. The voice in those poems is that of a young woman, grounded in home-making, child-making, questions of career, creativity, and nascent activism, but above all, joyously celebrating her newly reclaimed Jewish identity and vigorously advocating for feminist changes, many of which are normalized in our current realities. In a way, the two volumes bookend one another.

What do you want readers to take away from the book?

We are capable of tremendous resilience.

Listen, to others and to yourself.

Notice if you are inexplicably sad, or angry—find help and be courageous.

You don’t know the stories that have shaped another person: be respectful, gentle, kind.

Little children matter.

In the end, each day is gratitude.

Learn more and order the book at longing.ccarpress.org. Watch the video of the book launch, featuring a conversation between Merle Feld and Rabbi Hara Person, CCAR Chief Executive.

Merle Feld is an acclaimed poet, playwright, educator, and activist. Her previous works include her memoir A Spiritual Life and a poetry collection, Finding Words.