L IFESTYLE /C ULTURE
Ritualwell’s ADVOT Creates Poetic Community
ARTS SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
BEFORE RITUALWELL
was a website containing more
than 2,200 liturgy and rituals
crowdsourced by Jews, it was an
idea of where to put dozens of
scraps of paper in the drawers of
offi ces in the Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College and Kolot:
Center for Jewish Women’s and
Gender Studies in Wyncote.

In 2001, RRC and Kolot,
in partnership with Ma’yan, a
Jewish feminist organization,
uploaded the prayers scrawled
on those papers to the newfan-
gled Internet, creating an
archive of Jewish writing that
fi lled in the gaps of liturgies
and practices that historically
excluded women and LGBTQ+
Jews. Community members
were invited to write and submit
Overwhelmed with the
thought of moving?
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their own liturgies and rituals.

Almost two decades later,
Ritualwell has not only become
a library of prayers and poetry,
but an online community
center for Jews looking to hone
their skills through writing
workshops and classes.

Approaching its 20th anniver-
sary in December, Ritualwell
recently launched ADVOT, a
nationwide year-long writing
program, looking to continue its
mission of democratizing Jewish
traditions of old and new.

ADVOT, which means
“ripples” in Hebrew, consists of
27 writers, who will participate
in monthly online salons and
weekly writing studios.

Th e idea for ADVOT came
organically from Ritualwell’s
increasing workshop and
programming attendance over
the pandemic. On the anniver-
sary of the World Health
Organization’s declaration of
COVID as a pandemic, Ritualwell
hosted a virtual healing ritual
with 155 attendees.

“We noticed that there was a
community of people that was
growing around these off erings,
people who were taking these
22 OCTOBER 28, 2021
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had an opportunity to do that.”
Ritualwell’s reach goes far
beyond its workshop participants.

In April 2020, shortly aft er
COVID lockdowns began,
Brooklyn-based liturgist
Trisha Arlin wrote “A Blessing
for Washing Hands During a
Pandemic.” Th e prayer went
viral. “I keep hearing about churches
and synagogues and nursing
homes and hospitals that have
posted the prayer,” Arlin said.

Arlin’s prayer epitomizes
Ritualwell at its most potent. It
captures what it meant to live
through a time of uncertainty
and fear, and it took a mundane,
individual act and through
its widespread popularity and
accessibility, it became a point of
connection for those in Jewish
communities nationwide.

“Prayer is singular; it’s
between you and God,” Arlin
said. “But the essence of Jewish
prayer is that it’s done in a
community, and Ritualwell
off ers another version of that
community.” ●
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the senior Jewish educator
at the University of Illinois
Champaign-Urbana, was
looking for a community
through ADVOT. As a rabbinic
student, she is hoping to publish
a book of original liturgy.

Paul has participated in
writing groups before, but none
specifi c to Jewish writers.

“Fiction writing groups or
even creative nonfi ction writing
groups are not going to know
what to do with a ritual,” Paul
said. “Writing among liturgists
and other ritual designers is a
completely diff erent experience.”
Though the community
component of ADVOT is what
makes it unique to its members,
liturgy writing is personal.

Because of Ritualwell, Jews who
otherwise didn’t have a space
to write or publish rituals and
prayers specifi c to them now do.

“I’ve always loved Judaism’s
tradition of conversation,
challenging, reinterpretation,”
said Alex Carter, a member of
the liturgy committee at Bet
Mishpachah in Washington, D.C.

“One of my pet projects is reading
LGBTQ+ people and experiences
into literature, history; and I’ve
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Ritualwell immersions and then
were sending work to us, and
we were publishing their work,”
said Hila Ratzabi, Ritualwell’s
director of virtual content and
programs who co-leads ADVOT
with Adva Chattler. “We thought
‘it seems like there’s this creative
community here, and it doesn’t
really have a container yet.’”
Despite the commonality
of ADVOT’s participants in
wanting to create Jewish liturgy
and ritual, the cohort is made
up of writers from across the
country of varying ages. Some
are even in the process of
converting to Judaism. Many
were Ritualwell fans for years,
having already read or submitted
works to the site.

Th ough only a few weeks into
the program, participants are
already recognizing its merits.

“Writing is a very solitary
activity,” said ADVOT member
Karen Webber, who lives in
Boston. “Bouncing the ideas
off of like-minded people is
amazing. And then taking the
poetry from poems into ritual,
into prayers — that sort of
elevates it. It’s a diff erent level.”
Like Webber, Heather Paul,
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