Welcome to the online home of writer, ritualist, and celebrant Rachel Barenblat! Here you'll find information about who I am and the ritualcraft work that I do, as well as an archive of some of my ceremonies. Here, also, is information about my non-ritual writing work, both freelance and creative.

Franz Kafka once said "Writing is a form of prayer." That may not always be true -- few of us manage to generate grocery lists which are genuinely prayerful, for instance -- but I do my best to spend my life at the intersection of writing and religion. I write articles and essays about religion; I blog about religion; I weave Judaism into my poems; and I write prayers, ceremonies, and rituals, custom lifecycle events among them. If this interests you, you've come to the right place!

Hopefully the links in the lefthand sidebar are pretty self-explanatory. If you're interested in learning more about the art of Jewish ritualcraft, or about the possibility of my writing a holiday or lifecycle ceremony for you, you'll want the top five items. The next four focus on my non-ritual-related writing work. And if you'd like to begin a conversation about any of these things (or about my favorite poets, what books I'm reading lately, or my unlikely love for the Green Bay Packers) you can reach me through that bottom link.

Please be aware that this website is fairly static, and changes infrequently. My blog, Velveteen Rabbi, is updated often, so if you're looking for new material, that's the place to look.

Stop in and stay a while. Thanks for visiting the site of the Velveteen Rabbi!