The Waning Moon: Songs for Healing, Release, and Shmita
Elana Brody
, Noam Lerman
About Elana Brody
My name is Elana Brody. I am a white, cis-woman of Ashkenazi heritage, with a passion for songs, for the earth, and for connecting deeply and rightfully with the God/dess. Soon to be ordained Kohenet, I have been working as a prayer-leader and music artist for many years. I dream of creating an earth-based Jewish prayer community, that is centered around making offerings and pilgrimages, according to the seasonal cycles of agriculture, and times of day – much like in the days of old. My name is Rabbi Noam Lerman, and I am a white, trans, queer person with Ashkenazi and Sephardi ancestry from Milwaukee, WI. I love writing new nigunim, and also new melodies set to Yiddish Tkhines, which are prayers that were prayed by women and gender-non-conforming individuals.
About The Waning Moon: Songs for Healing, Release, and Shmita
For each month of the shmita year, during the week of the waning moon, we will offer a curated concert of new songs for healing, release, and shmita (rest) by Jewish musical artists.With monthly lineups of diverse songleaders, from all across the spectrum of Jewish practice, we offer the universal healing power of music – and a safe space and time container for our community to rest and receive this energy, much like a monthly microcosm of “shmita.” Our focus as facilitators will be on the inherent and sacred well – or wellness – alive and present within us, and our Judaism. We will inspire the feeling of abundance and being provided for, through the benevolent expressions of sacred music and poetry and song. Showcasing songs for healing, release, re-earthing, rest, nature, trust, and other themes of the shmita, we will explore what it is to let go of building, and to focus on being – especially in community together. Attendees of the concerts will have an opportunity to offer over their personal “fruits” of expression back to the “earth” – or in this case, to the community – in an online forum. The monthly concert series will be accompanied by an interactive online Facebook group, where attendees and participants can share their personal poetry, art, songs and videos of their forms of expression. With hopes to give all members of the community – not just the concert performers – an opportunity to “release” their offerings that can heal and feed and gently rebuild the soul/soil of our multicultural, pluralist, diverse, and yearning Jewish community.