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Rabbi Jill Hammer, a senior associate at Ma'yan: the Jewish Women's Project at the JCC in Manhattan, and the author of Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women, and the founder of Tel Shemesh - has adopted the cycle of the Shekhina to the agricultural cycle of the year in 18 stages. Jewish Holy Days and Celebrations like Rosh haShana and Yom Kippur begin the cycle in the first category of growth: The Seed/World. Here the Shekhina is born within the quickening earth and first encounters change and place and time as she protects and binds us together with the "circles of the sacred season." The second category - The Root/Time - leads us into the Chanuka, thru Rachel's Yahrtzeit. Here the Shekhina enters into the cycle of life and death and its possibilities of conflict, but also independence. The Shekhina passes and leads us thru: The Branch/Soul - where the darkness yields to the light. Then thru: The Sap/Growth - where at Purim the Shekhina creates paradox so that opposites can exist, dissolve, and allow many truths to become possible. Here also "she brings mirrors and laughter into the world." The Bud/Birth - with its feast of Passover brings the Shekhina firmly into the world of created order as she takes her place and "thrones herself within the tabernacle of the world." Now there can be Prophecy and the beginnings of Freedom. The Leaf/Life - is when and where the Shekhina "enters the covenant of sacred marriage between heaven and earth. Here she becomes the Future and becomes the Bride of the People. The Flower/Death - now she gives birth to Darkness and mourns for her spouse, the world. Things break. There is violence and exile and finally the Shekhina herself is driven into exile and "enters the underworld of pain and death to find and redeem her creation." The Fruit/Hinge of the Year is the last category of the Shekhina's - and creation's - yearly cycle. Here she rises from the underworld and covers herself in the waters of rebirth. "Forty days before the creation of the world, she becomes pregnant with the world and with Herself " and thus prepares to return into the earth to start the cycle again. Within these 8 categories there are 18 Stages wherein the circles meet and intertwine making One thing out of Many.

You may go BACK to where you were or ON to follow the Shekhina thread.

Rabbi Jill Hammer, a senior associate at Ma'yan: the Jewish Women's Project at the JCC in Manhattan, and the author of Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women, and the founder of Tel Shemesh - has adopted the cycle of the Shekhina to the agricultural cycle of the year in 18 stages. Jewish Holy Days and Celebrations like Rosh haShana and Yom Kippur begin the cycle in the first category of growth: The Seed/World. Here the Shekhina is born within the quickening earth and first encounters change and place and time as she protects and binds us together with the "circles of the sacred season." The second category - The Root/Time - leads us into the Chanuka, thru Rachel's Yahrtzeit. Here the Shekhina enters into the cycle of life and death and its possibilities of conflict, but also independence. The Shekhina passes and leads us thru: The Branch/Soul - where the darkness yields to the light. Then thru: The Sap/Growth - where at Purim the Shekhina creates paradox so that opposites can exist, dissolve, and allow many truths to become possible. Here also "she brings mirrors and laughter into the world." The Bud/Birth - with its feast of Passover brings the Shekhina firmly into the world of created order as she takes her place and "thrones herself within the tabernacle of the world." Now there can be Prophecy and the beginnings of Freedom. The Leaf/Life - is when and where the Shekhina "enters the covenant of sacred marriage between heaven and earth. Here she becomes the Future and becomes the Bride of the People. The Flower/Death - now she gives birth to Darkness and mourns for her spouse, the world. Things break. There is violence and exile and finally the Shekhina herself is driven into exile and "enters the underworld of pain and death to find and redeem her creation." The Fruit/Hinge of the Year is the last category of the Shekhina's - and creation's - yearly cycle. Here she rises from the underworld and covers herself in the waters of rebirth. "Forty days before the creation of the world, she becomes pregnant with the world and with Herself " and thus prepares to return into the earth to start the cycle again. Within these 8 categories there are 18 Stages wherein the circles meet and intertwine making One thing out of Many.