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Author: mira

Mira Z. Amiras is Professor of Comparative Religious Studies and founder of the Middle East Studies Program at San Jose State University. She is past-president of the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness, and has served on the Executive Council of the American Anthropological Association. She is co-founder, with Ovid Jacob, of Beit Malkhut, a study group in Jewish sacred text. She's most attached to the creatures of her body and her household — first and foremost, her kids, of course: Michael and Rayna — and then the other folks large and small of various species, including Roshi and Vlad, a whole lot of hummingbirds, the old parrot who lives next door, and a beautiful garden that does what it will.

the tzaddik and the vavlings

Posted on 15 July 201023 March 2011 by mira

A tzaddik walks into a bar, and … I really want to start that way, only the Tzaddik didn’t pick up the vav in a bar. The tzaddik has only been in a bar once in his life and that was when he was stranded (with a vavling, actually) in the middle of nowhere and…

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check list for the living

Posted on 13 July 201023 March 2011 by mira

When a good friend checked herself into a posh home for unencumbered elders … I stopped seeing her. This, despite that she now resided 60 miles closer than she had before. This despite my longstanding secret desire that she move those 60 miles closer. It took me over a year to visit her in the…

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death in paradise

Posted on 12 July 201023 March 2011 by mira

We hike in paradise on a daily basis. Slog though the sand on the cliffs overlooking the shore — and the sand gets deeper every year. Though every other year or so a truck comes by and tries to clear the trail some. The sand returns, carried by the wind. Someday, I’ll be slogging through…

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on not wanting a ‘conversation with god’

Posted on 2 July 201023 March 2011 by mira

Last night, I had another tetragrammaton moment, where all the elements — the yud, the hei, the vav, and the hei — come together, alchemically bound and perfect in every way. Well, it wasn’t that. There were only three of us, and I was the only hei, but never mind that. It’s not what I…

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glossary, as requested (with apologies)

Posted on 27 June 201023 March 2011 by mira

In no particular order, maybe this will help: shikse — (aka shiksa) — term of endearment (or not) for women of the non-Jewish persuasion. the most important sub-category is, of course, the shikse-goddess. shul — synagogue, small or large, in which members of the tribe congregate for ritual acts and moments of imposed solidarity. shabbes…

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the rebbe and the wise little children

Posted on 25 June 201023 March 2011 by mira

A friend and colleague posted this quote from Arthur Green on his blog and so, of course, I’ve struggled with it. Which is better than saying, yet again, that it pissed me off: “We would understand the entire course of evolution from the simplest life forms millions of years ago, to the great complexity of…

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how the sages die

Posted on 20 June 201023 March 2011 by mira

Within an hour of his demise, my father looked exactly like a very very dead body. He was already cold. His mouth was open in the midst of his last unfinished sentence. One hour was the time it took me to get there as fast as I could wake up and get across the bridge….

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the fourth rabbi

Posted on 13 June 201023 March 2011 by mira

When M was little, the tzaddik gave him a book of Bible Stories. I think it changed my son forever. That night I heard this scream from upstairs, and ran up to see what was wrong. He was tucked in bed with the book in his lap, outraged. He got right to the point: “How…

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running away together — dordogne

Posted on 5 June 201014 May 2011 by mira

It’s not like either of us never went anywhere — though I thought she had me beat in this regard. Her fieldwork took her to what I thought of as the ends of the earth. although for her, it wasn’t really all that far — just inaccessible. My own favorite spot was in the deep…

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Categories

  • kaddish in two-part harmony (552)
    • essays (158)
    • guest essays (11)
    • podcasts (388)
    • project news (13)
    • tzaddik stories (31)
  • Seymour Fromer z"l (16)
  • the rebbe's queer daughters (11)

Posts

  • kaddish for anke akevit (2015-20)
  • a kaddish for too many suicide victims—but it gets better!
  • a kaddish for sigrid syltetøy vang, b. 2006, d. 27 February 2018
  • guest kaddish: velvet marquesa flicka storm, 11 august 2005–9 april 2015
  • the stones I cannot place
  • oh amy, how could you — a kaddish for amy smith
  • guest kaddish: Gudrun Fossum Vang (16 June 1905–3 April 1972)
  • occasional kaddish: for Josephine Selvig Anderson (11 April 1915– 22 January 2012)
  • and death is so much closer than it was—a kaddish for rebecca fromer
  • easy come easy go: a kaddish for adrienne cooper
  • nyt remembrances—a kaddish for departed strangers
  • guest kaddish from David Mohr—for Kimba
  • killing you loudly—a kaddish
  • anything, anything but a mystical experience
  • daily kaddish: our project’s yahrtzeit

Contact the authors

email mira and erin: kaddish@beitmalkhut.org

Archives

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Copyright

© 2010–22 by Mira Z. Amiras and Erin Vang (beitmalkhut.org). All rights reserved worldwide.

thank you—תודה רבה

Permission to use Lev Kogan's "Kaddish," © 1982 by Israel Brass Woodwind Publications
In-kind support: Global Pragmatica LLC®

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