“I think chaos and void, darkness in the depths, are the beautiful, generative raw materials that God works with to create everything that comes from birdsong to starlight to waterfalls to redwoods, and that it's only by working with those elements that what comes next can emerge.”
Rabbi Adina Allen, “Don’t be afraid of the dark, that’s where creation begins” — Jew-ish Podcast, 2024
READ
“From Conflict to Creation: Rebecca’s Question and Our Own”
by Rabbi Adina Allen
Patheos, 2024
“Like Rebecca, each of us is part of the larger story unfolding in our time, each of us with a role to play in birthing something new and necessary.”
“The Place of All Possibility”
by Rabbi Adina Allen
Forthcoming from Ayin Press, 2024
“We bring our struggles, our questions, our longing or our pain to the page and invite forces beyond ourselves into our process. Without fail, the universe will give us back a gift: understanding, insight, comfort, connection.”
“Image as Portal to God”
by Rabbi Adina Allen
Patheos, 2023
“As a spiritual practice for today, image-making connects us to something bigger and beyond the self.”
”The Spiraling Cycle of (Re)Creation”
by Rabbi Adina Allen
Patheos, 2023
“Just as for God there is chaos and void and the creative impulse to begin the journey once again, so too for us.”
”The Art of Teshuva”
by Rabbi Adina Allen
My Jewish Learning, 2018
“The Jewish practice of repentance involves not merely turning away from sin, but turning toward the dark parts of ourselves.”
”Struggling with our Shadow”
by Rabbi Adina Allen
My Jewish Learning, 2023
“At this moment of intensifying violence, the Torah offers an insight into how we might open a path towards peace.”
“The Afterglow of Revelation”
by Rabbi Adina Allen
My Jewish Learning, 2023
"Revelation is not a disembodied, momentary insight, but rather the bounty of this particular year’s harvest of insight. Both kinds of kernels — of grain and Torah understanding — need to be nurtured and processed to be useful."
“Our Tender Yearning Heart”
by Rabbi Adina Allen
MyJewishLearning, 2024
“We haven’t yet awoken to the part of us that, through calamity and catastrophe, remains open and ever full of love, able to guide us through the challenges and changes to come.”
”Insights from Rabbi Adina Allen on Embracing our Creative Potential”
by Rabbi Adina Allen
Women Who Inspire, 2024
“Creativity is a capacity that exists in everyone. It is the sparking of new energy and fresh insight; it is inspiration and imagination; it is resilience; it is the ability to move with, and through, challenge and change with openness, curiosity, and courage.”
“The Medicine in the Mythic”
by Rabbi Adina Allen
MyJewishLearning, 2024
“Each of us enters into the grief portal in the ways we can, as a sacred act of service, for ourselves and for one another.”
“Even Now: Creativity, Possibility and the Renewal of the World”
by Rabbi Adina Allen
Rosh Hashanah, 2024
“In Jewish tradition, our season of renewal doesn’t wait for us to feel ready and capable, or for the time when our struggles are resolved and the world is at peace. It comes when that thin crescent of Tishre moon first appears in the sky. Amidst all our sorrow, heaviness, hurt and tears, hope and fears, tiny silver glow amidst the vast darkness.”
LISTEN
WATCH
The Place of All Possibility
A Book Talk with Rabbi Adina and Pat Allen for the 2024 Detroit Women’s Caucus for Art, 2024
Creativity Is…
Reflections from the JSP community, December 2022
Rabbi Adina Allen’s Keynote Speech at URJ 150th Anniversary
December 15, 2023
In the Cosmic Field
by Rabbi Adina Allen
Erev Rosh Hashanah 2023 / 5784 Drash
JSP High Holidays, JCC East Bay
A Cosmological Revolution/Revelation: Unraveling & Unafraid
by Rabbi Adina Allen
Rosh Hashanah 2023 / 5784 Drash
JSP High Holidays, JCC East Bay
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