Settled and Unsettled

This issue explores the liturgy, the embodied practices and the themes of unsettledness we find in the Jewish calendar. For example, what happens during the 49-day journey from Pesach to Shavuot, or when we sit in the temporary and fragile sukkah, or when we stand at the precipice of life’s gates during Neilah? These are all moments of uncertainty, fragility, and discomposure and they dislodge notions of who we are, what we do, how we live, and why we exist in the world. These are liminal times and spaces — neither here nor there. Included here are the voices of essayists on the road and around the globe who are reconsidering a straight path. Many of us learn over the course of a lifetime that the circuitous route — even the route we cannot anticipate when we embark upon it — may be rich and satisfying. The route may also be terrifying. It may make us vulnerable, or create angst and anxiety and loss. In the following pages, you will encounter the voices of men and women who have walked that circuitous path with both courage and trepidation, and who offer fragments of their life stories and the questions that animate their choices.