Category Archives for inspiration

Hebrew blessing stones

I am so excited to announce a completely new product: frosted glass stones with inspirational Hebrew words on them. I’m calling them Hebrew Blessing Stones.

Each stone is uniquely shaped and features three styles of text printed in white or black ink – the Hebrew word plus the English transliteration and translation. The translucent stones are about 1.25 inches in diameter. Order a set of all 10, or mix and match different quantities.

I’m starting with 10 different messages in this assortment:

  • Shalom – Peace (deep blue)
  • Emunah – Faith (light blue)
  • Menuchat HaNefesh – Peace of Mind (aqua)
  • Refuah – Healing (green)
  • Brachah – Blessing (purple)
  • Tzedek – Justice (amethyst)
  • Ahavah – Love (red)
  • Hakarat HaTov – Gratitude (purple)
  • Neshamah – Soul (white)
  • Zachor – Remember (black)

All have white text except Neshamah/Soul, which features black text on a white frosted glass stone.

What you give your attention to is what you get more of, and each of these inspirational stones will speak to you differently. Carry a stone with you as a focus for personal reflection and intention throughout the day, or place it in your favorite meditation spot as a beautiful reminder.

My manufacturing partner for these stones is Lifeforce Glass in Winchester, Massachusetts—not far from my old stomping grounds in Cambridge/Somerville. When I encountered these folks, I immediately knew exactly what I was going to create with their help. If you need your own custom assortment, definitely call on them! Ask for Josh and tell him I sent you.

I’m already thinking ahead to the next set of 10, so if there’s another sentiment you would like to carry with you, let me know your suggestions! (I am also thinking of offering a set of 10 Sefirot/Chakra Stones, but we’ll see how this set goes first.)

And, if you’ve read this far, you may be interested to know that I am officially confirmed to appear in the Art Fair at the 2025 Greater Chicago Jewish Festival. It’ll be taking place in just over 2 months – Sunday, June 8, 11am to 5pm – at the Cook County Forest Preserve at Oakton St. in Morton Grove, IL. I look forward to displaying my Blessing Stones and hopefully some other new items as well, in addition to all the old favorites. Mark your calendars and stay tuned!

Noteworthy sampler report, with much fragrance geeking

Some weeks ago, I got served a Facebook ad for Noteworthy Scents. The premise is that you can take their “3-minute quiz” and “Our AI will personalize your perfume kit”. So for $25 you get tiny sample vials of their top 4 fragrance picks hand- (er, machine-) selected for you, plus a $25 voucher toward any full-size purchase.

Now, I am pretty clear on what I like in fragrance. Most of my adult life I’ve had a strong leaning toward “masculine” scents – cologne, deodorant, body wash. Anything green, woody, mineral, aromatic; fig, sandalwood, leather, tobacco, salt, moss. My longtime favorite is Banana Republic’s Cordovan, and the body wash I buy for myself on repeat is the Goodfellow & Co Sea Salt & Moss at Target. Nevertheless, I succumbed to the impulse to find out if maybe something out there is even more perfect and resonant for me. (This writeup is not sponsored in any way, I’m just interested in writing about it.)

Continue reading →

Esther: For such a time as this

Tonight and tomorrow is Purim, the holiday celebrating the deliverance of the Jews of Persia from the evil machinations of the King’s vizier. There are four central mitzvot (commandments) of this holiday, but the most iconic one is the reading of the book of Esther, known as the Megillah (Scroll).

Megillat Esther has a special trope (melody) that I’ve never learned, but this year, we’re all reading out of books at home via Zoom, and our rabbi asked me if I would take on reading chapter 4. This chapter, as it happens, has several verses that are read in the the trope used for the book of Eicha (Lamentations) on Tisha B’Av, which I learned a couple years ago, so I figured that was a sign that I should step up.

This chapter also includes a verse that has always resonated with me. Queen Esther (in the palace) and her uncle Mordechai (protesting out in the town square) exchange a series of messages via Hatach, the chamberlain, about the looming crisis for the Jews. Mordechai implores Esther to use her privileged status and access to the king to intervene for her people, saying, “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to power for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13-14)

For this image, I wanted a watercolor wash background, and since it was surprisingly hard to find a suitable free version, I created my own in Photoshop. Drop me an email or a comment if you want a pointer to the exact brush settings. Then I darkened it up to improve the contrast.

I saved my images as grayscale TIFFs so I could apply the magenta color to them in InDesign, but WordPress is making me post them here as JPEGs. Do with them what you will – these backgrounds are free for personal or commercial use – but please find a way to link back to schultzyakovetz.com if you want to maintain good Internet karma.

The script font I chose is Selima, a lovely free brush script created by Jroh Creative. The block face is classic Goudy Old Style and the Hebrew is the beautiful Escritura Hebrew Demibold by Ricardo Santos.

May we all use our power and privilege to do good anytime we find ourselves in a position to do so. Who knows but that we were placed there for just such a time?

Now, off to finish cramming that reading! Purim sameach!

Bishvili Nivra HaOlam, or, The two pockets

In October of 2018, an Etsy customer commissioned from me a design of the quotation Bishvili nivra ha-olam: “The world was created for me”.

This phrase is a quote from the Talmud (Sanhedrin 37B), but it is most famously incorporated into a Chassidic story about Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshischa (the Yiddish name for the town of Przysucha, Poland).

Rabbi Simcha Bunim teaches: Every person should have two pockets. In one pocket should be a piece of paper saying: “I am only dust and ashes.” When one is feeling too proud, reach into this pocket and take out this paper and read it. In the other pocket should be a piece of paper saying: “For my sake was the world created.” When one is feeling disheartened and lowly, reach into this pocket and take this paper out and read it. We are each the joining of two worlds. We are fashioned from clay, but our spirit is the breath of Adonai.
—Martin Buber, Tales of The Hasidim Later Masters, pp. 249-50

At the time of the original commission, it struck me that I ought to create a two-sided wallet card with one saying on each side.

Zazzle annually offers its Pro members (ProDesigners) a free batch of business cards (FYI!). So when it came time to order this year’s set, I finally sat down and designed the other side.

The cards arrived last Thursday and I’m quite pleased with them!

At that point, I also realized that by a happy coincidence, that week’s Torah portion was Vayera, the source of the “dust and ashes” quotation. It occurs in Genesis 18:27 when Abraham is bargaining with God over Sodom and Gomorrah:

כז  וַיַּעַן אַבְרָהָם, וַיֹּאמַר:  הִנֵּה-נָא הוֹאַלְתִּי לְדַבֵּר אֶל-אֲדֹנָי, וְאָנֹכִי עָפָר וָאֵפֶר. 27 And Abraham answered and said: ‘Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the LORD, who am but dust and ashes.
כח  אוּלַי יַחְסְרוּן חֲמִשִּׁים הַצַּדִּיקִם, חֲמִשָּׁה–הֲתַשְׁחִית בַּחֲמִשָּׁה, אֶת-כָּל-הָעִיר; וַיֹּאמֶר, לֹא אַשְׁחִית, אִם-אֶמְצָא שָׁם, אַרְבָּעִים וַחֲמִשָּׁה. 28 Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous; wilt Thou destroy all the city for lack of five?’ And He said: ‘I will not destroy it, if I find there forty and five.’

—Genesis Chapter 18

Granted, there’s nothing like entering a battle of wits with the Eternal Creator to make a person mindful of their own base humanity. But the point is, maybe Abraham would also have benefited from keeping one of these two-sided cards in his pocket. After all, in a very real sense, the world was also created for him.

 

Further reading:

 

Selected poems from Sappho

As part of an ongoing (if halfhearted) decluttering effort, I’ve recently been posting some more books to PaperBackSwap.com… including a bunch of my old college books. (Goodbye, The Faerie Queen! Goodbye, Aristotle’s Poetics!)

One that I am shipping off tomorrow is a book of Sappho’s extant poetry and fragments, as translated by Mary Barnard in 1958. Leafing through them again, I am still struck by the luminous haiku-like quality achieved by these particular translations. I looked up other renderings of some of them, and they were just dead on the page by comparison. Much κῦδος to Ms. Barnard (1909-2001). (Better scholars than I am can peruse the Greek fragments here.)

I had dogeared a handful of pages in my copy, probably from my freshman humanities class in 1989, for the poems that I particularly enjoyed. So I wanted to record them for posterity before I send the book to its new owner.

3.
Standing by my bed

In gold sandals
Dawn that very
moment awoke me

9.
Although they are

Only breath, words
which I command
are immortal

12
It’s no use

Mother dear, I
can’t finish my
weaving
You may
blame Aphrodite

soft as she is

she has almost
killed me with
love for that boy

24
Awed by her splendor

Stars near the lovely
moon cover their own
bright faces
when she
is roundest and lights
earth with her silver

47
I was so happy

Believe me, I
prayed that that
night might be
doubled for us

48
Now I know why Eros,

of all the progeny of
Heaven and Earth, has
been most dearly loved

61
Pain penetrates

Me drop
by drop

and my overall favorite:

64
Tonight I’ve watched

The moon and then
the Pleiades
go down

The night is now
half-gone; youth
goes; I am

in bed alone

Then there are a few later in the book that have an absolutely Dorothy Parker feel:

73
Yes, it is pretty

but come, dear, need
you pride yourself
that much on a ring?

84
If you are squeamish

Don’t prod the
beach rubble

Wishing much enjoyment to the next reader!

The Jewish Advocate interviews me

My writer friend Michael A. Burstein sometimes writes for The Jewish Advocate, which is the local Jewish community newspaper in Boston. He is also a regular attendee of Arisia, so he pitched an article to the Advocate regarding the Friday night davening and the new siddur, and he interviewed me for it.

Observant Jews ‘daven’ long, prosper at area sci-fi con

The article made the front page of this week’s paper (!), but like all their digital content, it’s behind a paywall. (Boston locals please note: If you’re not an Advocate subscriber, you can still pick up an individual copy at the Israel Book Shop in Brookline… if the snow emergency ever ends!) So rather than the article itself, I give you the (slightly edited) text of my interview answers instead.

Continue reading →

SCOTUS Angels update: Nonviolent (gun-free) edition

At last writing, I had recently released the original SCOTUS Angels design and promised (after many inquiries) to create a nonviolent, gun-free version.

Things that have happened since then:

  • On March 8, Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder/president of Whole Woman’s Health and lead plaintiff on Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, contacted me on Facebook to ask if I would consider directing the proceeds toward the Center for Reproductive Rights (the nonprofit law firm representing WWH to the Supreme Court), rather than my go-to of Planned Parenthood. I was happy to agree to this idea. Ten percent of the royalties from this design (both versions) will now benefit the Center for Reproductive Rights.
  • Also on March 8, Zazzle pulled down every product using the first design, on the grounds of copyright (really trademark) infringement. Alas!
  • On March 12, I released the gun-free version. In this edition, justice is being served with the tools of law (symbolized by gavels, scales, and books) rather than with weapons. I posted both designs on an art site called Society6, about which I had heard good things. However, their product selection is more limited than Zazzle’s (no bumper stickers! no plus sizes!), so I also went back and posted the new design on Zazzle. So far, it’s remained up with no copyright issues.
  • Tangentially, but not for nothing: On March 16, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to fill the SCOTUS vacancy. (Side note: if approved, his appointment would increase the count of Jews on the Court to 4 out of 9, joining Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan.) Dear Senate Judiciary Committee: Approve or reject him as you see fit, but please, #DoYourJob and hold the hearings.

Anyway. Shop the collections:

 

New project: SCOTUS Angels

Hi. This is Erica. Apparently I won the Internet this weekend, with a little Photoshop riff on a classic tableau.

“Once upon a time there were three brilliant women who went to the Supreme Court. Two Jewish, the other Latina. And now they work for me. My name is Social Justice.”

Posted by Erica Schultz Yakovetz on Saturday, March 5, 2016

Inspired by Dahlia Lithwick’s March 2 Slate article on Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, my friend Laurie asked for a T-shirt of Justices Ginsburg, Kagan and Sotomayor in a Charlie’s Angels pose. Saturday night, I released this:

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That’s the Notorious RBG in the center, with Elena Kagan at left and Sonia Sotomayor at right. The white jabots are based on the real versions sported by each of these amazing women.

Now you, too, can have that T-shirt, thanks to Zazzle. There are different variations for different background colors, so the product line is getting a little complex. I’m curating the full set at this link: SCOTUS Angels Collection.

I’m pledging 10% of my royalties to Planned Parenthood. UPDATE, 3/8/16: Amy Hagstrom Miller, the lead plaintiff in Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt, reached out to me today to ask if the proceeds could instead support the Center for Reproductive Rights (the nonprofit law firm representing WWH for this case). So, while the first $50 based on sales to date will still go to Planned Parenthood (my go-to, along with Medical Students for Choice and the ACLU, for my regular charitable support), I am happy to direct 10% of the future proceeds to the Center. Thank you, Amy, for your activism! And Happy International Women’s Day!

And after many requests, YES, I will be creating a nonviolent (gun-free) version in the near future. Gavels, law book, scales of justice. Something. Watch this space.

New for 2015: I’m in a book!

Last month, I received an email inquiry from a photographer named Susan Ressler, formerly of Indiana (she is Professor Emerita of Visual and Performing Arts at Purdue University) and now of New Mexico. elements

Susan was preparing to self-publish a book of her fine art photography from a recent trip to Israel, organized (as it happened) into sections based on the elements: Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. She had come across my 2007 piece Elements: The Holy Cities and wanted to include it in the introduction to her book, as a way of setting the stage!

Her completed book, Understanding Israel (subtitle: “Jaffa is More than Oranges”), is now live on a print-on-demand site called Blurb. It’s available in two trim sizes: 8×10 ($45.99) or the more luxurious 11×13 ($99.95), both in a dramatic landscape format. If you click on the title above, you can browse through the entire book. For the curious, my contribution is on page 10 :-) but the rest is well worth a look.

Below is the official Blurb “badge” for the book:

Understanding Israel (8x10
Understanding …
Jaffa is More than…
By Susan Rebecca Ressler
Photo book

 
(And also, since apparently this is my first post in the new year: Happy 2015!)