Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation

Community Learning

Rosh Chodesh Tammuz – June 26, 2025

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As we enter the month of Tammuz on the Jewish calendar, we step into a season steeped in myth, mourning, and memory. Interestingly, the name Tammuz comes from Babylonian tradition. Tammuz was a beautiful young vegetation god who died, was mourned, and then returned to life.

Also known as Dumuzi, Tammuz was associated with the fertility of the land—a corn god whose death marked the drying of the fields—the tears of those who mourned him were believed to fertilize the soil for future harvests. He was also known as Dumu-zi-abzu, Tammuz of the Abyss, a name that links him to water—not only through tears and the primordial waters of creation, but also through the rivers that sustained Babylonian agriculture.

The mourning of Tammuz was a ritual event, in which women gathered to weep for the dying god in acts of devotion that mirrored the agricultural cycle: the seed buried in the soil was symbolic of death, watered or revived by tears, to sprout and be reborn in the next season. A powerful metaphor for the life cycle (birth, death and rebirth) and moving through grief.

Tammuz in the Tanach

Tammuz makes a brief but pointed appearance in the Tanach, in the book of Ezekiel:

Then [God] brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the House of YHVH; and there sat the women, bewailing Tammuz.

The prophet Ezekiel is outraged. The weeping for Tammuz is framed not as sacred, but as idolatrous—a betrayal of covenantal faith. Here, Babylonian religious practice crosses into Israelite consciousness but is rejected and shut down.

Mourning in Jewish Time: The 17th of Tammuz to Tisha B’Av

Coincidentally—or perhaps not—the month of Tammuz also begins our own traditional season of mourning: the Three Weeks, which culminate in Tisha B’Av, the day of destruction. On the 17th of Tammuz, we commemorate the breach of Jerusalem’s walls—an ominous precursor to the fall of the Temple. By Tisha B’Av, we are fully immersed in mourning over the destruction of both Temples and other collective Jewish tragedies.

While distinct from the mourning of Tammuz in Babylon, echoes linger. Some scholars suggest that though official Tammuz cult practices were never sanctioned in ancient Israel, remnants may have survived “in the streets of Jerusalem and other cities,” as Jastrow writes—not in the Temple, but among the people.

What Do We Make of All This?


The human impulse to ritualize grief—to mourn what is lost in nature and in society—is still with us. Tammuz reminds us of the ancient roots of spiritual practice, and of the ongoing tension in Jewish tradition between integrating with the cultures around us and celebrating the particularity of our Jewish identities with their unique customs, rituals and folkways.

This year, we don’t have to look far to feel the sorrow this season invites. As we enter Tammuz, our hearts are already heavy—with grief for lives lost, for communities shattered, for the pain in Israel and Gaza, Iran, Ukraine, and other places torn by war and violence. We grieve also for the erosion of democratic values and freedoms closer to home.

May we learn from our ancient, cross-cultural spiritual roots and allow our tears to sow seeds of compassion, justice, and peace.

May not all hope be lost as we continue to keep our hearts open. May our tears flow together and form a stream of healing that irrigates the soil—so it becomes fertile ground for creativity, bridge-building, and repair. May we be patient and steadfast on this path and hold one another close.

Chodesh Tov!

B’ahavah,

Rav Gavrielle

Happy Juneteenth

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Happy Juneteenth! Juneteenth is a federal holiday (2021) that is being celebrated by African Americans all over the United States. Juneteenth is celebrated on June 19th because of the significance the date has to African American history. June 19, 1865 was when General Gordon Granger came to Texas to announce the end of slavery-over two years after the emancipation proclamation was signed into effect. Juneteenth is now an important date in African American history because it represents the freedom that all slaves longed for. While we celebrate Juneteenth, we should reflect on what it means to be both jewish and black. We should reflect on what it means to have freedom, equality, justice, and the journey of black jews. 

Being both Black and Jewish means living in two very diverse and rich cultures. It also means having to navigate between the greatness of the two histories and the judgment and struggle of these two misunderstood and marginalized communities. Both communities have faced multiple hardships, but through the fog, they have also been resistant. Often having to make the most out of nothing, doing whatever they could for survival of self, pride, and history. 

For more information, consider visiting these websites:

If you’re interested in reading more about black and Jewish identity, these works tackle themes of race, religion, belonging, identity, and justice: 

It’s Shabbat – come meditate

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Words by Anita Rubin-Meiller

In my first week of the Flourish course, a meditation teacher’s training offered by
the Institute of Jewish Spirituality, we were given a text by R. Shalom Noach
Berezovsky. R. Berezovsky identified Shabbat as an ark that enables us to find
refuge from the flood of chaos and overwhelm in the weekday world. He
states…”the deficiency of the generation of the Flood was in its scattered da’at
(awareness, mindfulness) which is the root of all harm…” He suggests we repair
such scattering of da’at through Yishuv hada’at (a settling, calming, centering of
mind). Without this, we are lost, unable to be truly connected to ourselves, or to
the Creator, who “renews our very being from moment to moment.”

Calming, Centering, Connecting through meditation has deep roots in Jewish
practice and is written about by many sages past and present. It is a practice that
is at once simple but difficult, in that it requires compassionate patience with
oneself and the ramblings of our minds that seem determined on scattering our
attention. It is a practice that has increasing benefits over time.

I was first exposed to meditation in a Jewish context in 2019 when I was blessed
to attend a 6-day silent retreat with Rabbi Jeff Roth, Rabbi Sheila Pelz-Weinberg,
Buddhist teacher Sylvia Boorstein, and Zen priest Norman Fischer. Since then, I
have been meditating multiple times a week with Rabbi Roth’s Awakened Heart
Community. While meditation doesn’t necessarily change who you are, it does
impact how much you accept and love yourself as your critical mind calms, as
compassion heightens, as your attention to each moment deepens.

There are many approaches to meditation- from sitting with attention on the
breath; to mentally reciting a word or phrase; to following a guided script that
offers an intention and imagery. Each approach offers the opportunity to bring
your attention inward, to notice what arises in mind, body and heart moment to
moment without getting caught up in it, to perhaps find that precious still point
and rest there for a moment.

I am pleased to be able to offer an opportunity for our community to gather
together to practice for 20 minutes of meditation on the second Saturday of the
month before services. Check the Tuesday mailer for exact times and location.
I hope to see you there.

Yom Kippur Workshops

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Workshop #1: Deborah Dash Moore on Mordechai Kaplan 2:00-3:10pm

Workshop #2: Niggun Circle 2:00-3:10pm

In this “workshop” we’ll be calming ourselves down by chanting melodies and prayers that focus on healing.  Interspersed in this, there will be opportunities to share what you need to.  

There’s nothing I’d rather do on a Yom Kippur afternoon (or any other time, TBH!) than sing.  If you are so inclined, please join us. – Deb K

Workshop #3: Listening through Grief in a time of Middle East upheaval: Communal Yizkor 3:15-4:25pm

This is a listening session for anyone who has experienced grief (in the largest sense) related to the Middle East over the past year and wishes to process it as a community as a step towards tikkun olam and personal Teshuva. This will be a space to listen with respect and kindness. Our intention is not to discuss policy, to engage in debate or to challenge each other’s experience but rather to deepen our sense of community. Sign-up now, if you want to reserve a spot. Please arrive on-time. We will be starting promptly.

The Jewish Leap Year And The Coming of Spring

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This year is a special event in the Jewish calendar, it is a leap year in the Hebrew calendar as well as the Gregorian calendar. The Jewish leap year occurs in 7 of the 19 years in the calendar cycle, or about once every 3 years. In the Jewish leap years we add in an extra month called Adar II. In non-leap years we only have one month of Adar. The leap years ensure that the Jewish holidays fall in their appropriate or respective seasons.

Adar II has been known to be a month of joy, primarily because the month always includes Purim but also because it brings in Spring for the northern hemisphere. According to the Talmud, ‘When Adar enters, joy increases.’

Another way the leap year has been conceptualized is to consider that we have the ability to alter our world and our experience when regularity challenges us. If the norm creates a disruption, we have the ability to make changes for the better. This can be related to the Purim story, to a leap year, or life in general.

What are you going to do with your extra day (or extra month!) this leap year? We look forward to celebrating Purim together in a few weeks and bringing in the Spring season together in community.

The Particular Experience of Jewish Grief In Our Current Socio-Political Landscape

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As many of you know, in addition to being the communication and event coordinator for the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation, I have also been attending University of Michigan’s School of Social Work. As part of my program in Geriatric Social Work and Interpersonal Practice (counseling) I have been working as a bereavement counselor for a hospice organization. In my work with clients over the last few months I have started to notice some connections between the grieving process and what our community has been experiencing since October 7th. Regardless of one’s particular position on the conflict in Israel/Palestine I have seen almost everyone in our community express notions of loss and sorrow.

Two of the primary objectives of grief counseling are to acknowledge the loss and to find ways to create meaning and cope with the loss as you move forward in your life. The work also involves allowing ourselves to feel overwhelming emotions such as anger, guilt, anxiety, spiritual questioning, social withdraw, racing thoughts amongst others. When confronted with profound grief, emotions such as these can feel particularly strong and we may feel ‘out of control’ when experiencing them. This ‘out of control’ feeling is sometimes frightening and for a lot of people it may the first time they have experienced intense emotional overwhelm.

For many of us, feeling insecurity around the safety of Israel feels like a profound loss. Many of us have family in Israel and even connections with those who were kidnapped or killed in recent attacks. Some of us have experienced tension in our personal relationships as a result of the conflict and this has created absences in our relationships that feel like loss. We all have different relationships to Israel, but most of us feel some sense of security in having land where being Jewish is not a marginalized experience. At the same time it also feels like a profound loss to wrap our heads around the amount of death and suffering that has happened in Gaza in the last few months. These are profound and complex emotional experiences. This emotional experience includes intense feelings that align with the process of grief.

So what does our tradition teach us about grief and mourning? One of our fundamental practices after experiencing a loss is to sit Shiva. During Shiva, prayers are recited to remind us that amongst the darkness “The human soul is the lamp of G’d.”1 Regardless of how we define G’d, the unsettling experience of lack of control as an individual can be comforted by the belief that this period of darkness is fundamental to our flawed humanity. This also brings to mind the Nahman of Braztlav’s meditation, “The entire world is a very narrow bridge, the only thing is to have no fear at all.”2 As we learned during High Holy Days with Rabbi Ora, leaning into the narrow bridge and feeling fear as we move forward is to be human. We are in a time of Pachad and Hitchpadut and Yirah– fear for survival, worry fear, and awe – what can this fear teach us? How can we reach deep during this dark time and take steps towards a better world?

We are indeed in very dark times and I believe we are all grieving for our own particular losses during this terrible war. The final wisdom that I want to share with you from our Shiva prayer book is the wisdom of the community of Shiva. When we sit Shiva, we do not claim to understand the suffering of the mourning, but to be there with them and witness. To support the mourning with love and with tenderness without expectation.

How we express our grief is unique to our position and the myriad experiences that have defined our lives. This experience of grief is a natural part of loss and regardless of our political beliefs we have all lost something as a result of this terrible war. You will be heartened to know that plans are in the works to be together in community to witness and act on our experience of loss and grief around this place in history. Communications will soon be sent to members to invite you to be together during this difficult time. I only ask that we all be patient and gentle with each other as we come together around this issue, during grief our emotions are very close to the surface and we are vulnerable.

I leave you with this quote from our Shiva Kol Hashenamah for the House of Mourning:

“We look for the strength to withstand the sadness of loss and for the courage to endure in the presence of death. We pray for the ability to give as well as to receive comfort in our moments of mourning. We search for light amidst the darkness, striving to accept the blessing of life itself which death so often seeks to deny. Judaism celebrates life as a blessing and a gift, and occasions of loss can make us aware- as perhaps no other occasions can- of the need to cherish each moment of life that we are given.”

  1. https://www.reconstructingjudaism.org/files/kh/kh-house-of-mourning.pdf ↩︎
  2. https://www.reconstructingjudaism.org/files/kh/kh-house-of-mourning.pdf ↩︎

Welcoming Our New Rabbi and Closing The Book On A Year Of Lay Leadership

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Have you ever heard the adage, ‘you can’t tell how strong the tea is until you put it in hot water?’ As you probably surmised, this saying refers to how we learn what our strengths are when we are put in challenging situations. To say that we have tested our strength in this way over the last few years is an understatement! But I am happy to report that this congregation is made of some pretty strong tea. Some crucial ingredients of this tea are relationship, resilience, commitment and communal joy. For example, we managed to hold Shabbat services all year without interruption with the leadership of our community! As we welcome our new Rabbi to her first service this weekend, we can reflect on the joyous times that we spent together during our year of lay leadership and be proud that we are welcoming her into a strong and resilient community.

Take a look at this slide show highlighting the wonderful year, if we can have this much fun without a Rabbi- we are in for a great year ahead with Rabbi Gabrielle Pescador!

Night of Learning for Shavuot
Mimouna Seder with Beit Sefer
Music Accompaniment by the ‘Ravening Team’
Sukkot Campout and Shmita Work Day at The Farm on Jennings
End of Summer Potluck Picnic at Bandemere Park
Zeitouna Film Event
Community End Of Passover Cookout
End Of Summer Potluck Picnic at Bandemere Park
Apples and Honey
Passover Shpiel Led by Etta!
Dylan’s Bar Mitzvah Led by Etta!
Brenna’s Bat Mitzvah Led by Deb Kraus

Exploring Rosh Chodesh

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During our Shabbaton weekend with Rabbi Gabrielle Pescador, she referenced a Rosh Chodesh circle that she has been hosting with Pardes Hannah over the last few years. Rosh Chodesh is a Jewish practice that was not part of my upbringing so I thought I’d do a little research and share it with you!

What is Rosh Chodesh?

Rosh Chodesh is translated as ‘Head of the Month.’ It is an ancient holiday that originated in Exodus marked by the appearance of the New Moon. The holiday was practiced before a formalized calendar was established by confirming the new moon each month. Once a monthly calendar was created, Rosh Chodesh was observed on the Saturday before the new moon by reciting the Birkat Hakodesh after the Saturday morning Torah reading. Some also add extra Rosh Chodesh prayers to the Amidah, Kaddish, and morning prayers.

Feminist History of Rosh Chodesh

Historically women were able to abstain from physical work on Rosh Chodesh. Some believe this was because women refused to give their Jewelry for the formation of the golden calf. Others believe the waning and waxing moon hold significance for a women’s menstrual cycle and the Rosh Chodesh observance is tied to this. In the early 70s groups of women began starting a new kind of Rosh Chodesh circle. In Peninah Adelman’s Miriam’s Well: Rituals for Jewish Women Around the Year, she offers program ideas for groups who wish to build on the Rosh Chodesh tradition as a time for community building and bonding for Jewish women.  Most Rosh Chodesh circle’s organize around mutual interest and ritual practice. Exploring and redefining the relationship between the feminine, the moon, and sisterhood has been a foundation for a myriad of Rosh Chodesh women’s groups over the last few decades.

Rabbi Gabrielle Pescador’s Rosh Chodesh Circle

Rabbi Gabrielle Pescador began a Rosh Chodesh circle through Pardes Hannah while she was studying for her Rabbinic program. Her circles focus around a central theme or teaching connected to the Torah portion for that week. Rabbi Gabrielle is interested exploring Rosh Chodesh as an opportunity to practice Torah reading for our community and deepening our Torah practice. If you are interested in exploring Rosh Chodesh with Rabbi Gabrielle, stay tuned for her upcoming Rosh Chodesh offerings!

Counting the Omer between Passover and Shavuot

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One of the ways that my children were taught to calm down and take a break when they were processing their feelings was to count. Count 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can tough, 2 things you can smell, one thing you can taste. Or count your fingers and your toes while taking deep breaths. There are many ways that marking the passage of time, either by minutes or days, can make us feel calm, connect us to our bodies, and help us to feel a part of something larger than ourselves.

Counting the Omer began as an agricultural holiday that has its roots in the first barley offering and the first wheat offering in the Temple Era. The observance was a way of offering prayer for a good harvest. As Jewish civilization transitioned out of the temple period, counting Omer moved into an exercise to mark the passage of time between Passover and Shavuot. It is an existential exercise that asks us to reflect on the movement from enslavement, to liberation, to the giving of Torah both in the liturgical sense an also the change in perspective within our minds. The omer is counted every day for 7 weeks, ending with the holiday of Shavuot.

In Michigan, we’re far away from the wheat and barley harvests of Israel, as well as far from the experience of being enslaved. But as spring unfolds for us, counting the omer can help us shake off the stiffness of winter and recommit to the work of tikkun hanefesh (healing the soul) and tikkun olam (healing the world). 

Some resources for counting the omer: