New Planner Offers a Modern Take on the Ancient Jewish Calendar 

Olympia, Washington (July, 2021): From the innovative centers of Jewish culture and community comes a new calendar for the year ahead: Verdant Dreams of Olam haBa. 

This planner for the Hebrew year 5782 combines Hebrew, Gregorian and moon calendars into one gorgeous sparkling spiral bound book, offering tools for integrating spiritual practices into day to day life. Curated, edited, and illustrated by Olympia-based Jewish artists and Kohanot (Hebrew Priestesses) Rebekah Erev and Nomy Lamm, the planner weaves together art, mystical associations, and ritual offerings for each month, with room for writing down dreams, plans and reflections. It includes important Jewish holidays, the weekly cycle of Shabbat (and Parshat/Torah Portion of the week), the monthly cycle of Rosh Chodesh, the Netivot (Hebrew priestess archetypes), and the Tarot cards and plants associated with each month.

The planner features new contributions from thirteen Jewish clergy and mystics, writing on the unique attributes of each month and offering rituals for engaging with the Jewish calendar. The planner embodies the spirit of Olam haBa by highlighting perspectives of Jews that have often been left out — Jews of Color, women, trans, and non-binary Jews disabled and queer Jews, and Jews by Choice. Contributors include Dr. Harriette Wimms, founder of the Jews of Color Mishpacha Project; Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, one of the first 10 women rabbis; Rabbi Dr. Tirzah Firestone, a leader in the Jewish Renewal Movement; Taya Mâ Shere, co-founder of Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute; Koach Baruch Frazier, cofounder of Tzedek Lab; Rabbi Elliot Kukla, the first trans rabbi to be ordained in the Reform movement; and seven more community leaders. 

Nomy Lamm describes the impetus for creating this project: “For years we’ve both been wishing for a usable and beautiful calendar where we can track both our material world goings-on and our interior worlds. This planner is made of the living dreams of our ancestors. These are tools that come from Jewish lineage, from the seasons and cycles of the earth, from radical queer community, and our own sacred bodies…”

Reflecting on the title, curator Rebekah Erev adds: “Why Olam haBa? These words that mean ‘The World to Come’ form a concept in Judaism that we interpret as a time when all the earth’s inhabitants live reciprocally with each other and the earth, healing the traumas of oppression, allowing every being to live in full expression.” 

This year’s theme, “Verdant Dreams,” calls forth imagery of our lush, green planet.

5782 marks a shmita year (occuring once every seven years) in the Hebrew calendar, in which Jewish practice sets forth agrarian principles for letting fields lay fallow to rest and renew. Shmita literally means “release,” and in Biblical times included the forgiving of debts. Erev and Lamm see this cycle as an opportunity to question economic systems that stratify wealth and privatize ownership of land. Shmita year creates opportunities to observe how animals, plants and mycelium interact with each other, in order to better befriend the more-than-human world. 

Praise for the Olam HaBa planner: 

This planner is part of a canon of emerging feminist earth-based interpretations of the Hebrew calendar, including Gold Herring’s Jewish Daily Planner, The New York Jewish Museum Wall Calendar, and the Radical Jewish Calendar. These projects point toward a deepening desire for connection to ancient wisdom and luni-solar cycles, and Jewish practices that connect us to our bodies, the earth, and the Divine.

A portion of the sales of the inaugural Olam haBa planner last year went to support reparations efforts, including a donation to Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), the Olympia-based #Justice4Yvonne campaign, and to the Chaplin-Thompson family — a Black family in the Olympia area who survived police terror, and who have never seen justice — with their secure housing campaign, as an act of Reparations. 

Verdant Dreams of Olam haBa is self-published and printed by South Bay Press in Olympia, WA, on 60lb weight paper and measures 6.5” x 9.5” and 270 pages. It is available for purchase at www.dreamingtheworldtocome.com and will be shipped in eco-friendly gift wrap.  

High-resolution images available at: https://tinyurl.com/OlamHaBaPhotos

Nomy Lamm (she/they) is a musician, illustrator, voice teacher, creative coach, and kohenet/Hebrew priestess. Nomy is the Creative Director of Sins Invalid, a disability justice based performance project, and sings cosmic power ballads for the rise of the matriarchy in a band called The Beauty. Nomy teaches online voice classes called Sacred Fragments, and creates ritual tools for embodied Jewish feminist practice. They live in Olympia, WA on occupied Squaxin / Nisqually / Chehalis land with their partner Lisa and their animal companions Dandelion, Momma, Calendula and Chanukah. www.nomyteaches.com

Rebekah Erev (they/them) is an artist, teacher, kohenet/Hebrew priestess, dream worker, gardener and healer living with disabilities. They celebrate the beauty of diaspora with Queer Mikveh Project and by creating ritual tools including: The Malakh Halevanah / Moon Angels Oracle Deck and incantation bowls. They teach online and in person classes about Jewish magic, cultivating creativity, and the Hebrew letters and their mystical connections with plants and animals. They live on the occupied lands of the Squaxin, Chehalis, and Nisqually people in Olympia, WA. with their beloved community. www.RebekahErevStudio.com