Queer Spiritual Counseling

03/15/2026

Fill this out and then reach out. Q***r Spiritual Counseling provides a way to find blessing in life even as we rise up to fight against the evil in the world.

Seriously. Reach out. DM me. Let’s talk. Blessings!

01/16/2025

Chaplains retiring from the Pennsylvania DOC are asked to share a parting message in the Dept. newsletter. Below is my submission.

10/07/2024

Healing trauma saves lives.

Cherishing trauma gets more people killed.

09/19/2024

We are in the month of Elul in which as Jews we do "Teshuvah" -- make amends for the wrongs we have done this past year. If I have done you or the world wrong in some way, and I have not expressed regret or have not atoned, please DM me, call me, or contact me some other way. Let us talk. I wish to make amends.

05/07/2024

Hello, anybody visiting the page!
The website is up and limping these days.

The blog is there and the basic info is there. The "free gift" gimmick is broke. Please email me for more info and a free gift.
[email protected]

04/24/2024

Led Seders at the prison on first two nights. I felt an amazing difference between two separate and randomly sorted groups of men. One group soared out of Egypt motivated by an urge to ask, give, and contribute, and the other slogged its way across the muddy seabed fueled by suspicion and frustrated entitlement. Same holiday, same food, same rabbi, same Haggadah. The irony of celebrating a "Festival of Liberation" in a prison can play out either way. It teaches me again how what any of us gets out of any experience depends on what we try to find in it.

04/22/2024

This Pesach may we celebrate the end of ALL tyranny -- foreign and domestic -- and from our own habitual capacity to be tyrannous.

03/09/2024

tl:ra [too long; read anyway!!]

ATTENTION ALL MEN WHO LOVE MEN!

This retreat is FOR YOU and ABOUT YOU.

Yes, it's about polyamory and ethical non-monogamy, but it's also about COVENANT (the topic of one of my workshops, in fact)! It's about "What makes any given relationship work?"

It's about boundaries and consent. It's about love and pleasure. It reinforces the truth that one model does NOT work for everybody. Nope, it doesn't. That's so true that I no longer wish it did.

Imho, the AMAZING element from last year's workshop was that while we had workshop leaders, there were NO EXPERTS. We all listened and learned from each other. WE ARE ALL EXPERTS in our own experience -- we know what we have felt -- but we can understand our lives better by talking openly with others.

Single, partnered, poly, non-monogamous, curious, and/or clueless, this retreat is FOR YOU and ABOUT YOU.

Also there is a March Madness DISCOUNT CODE! Please DM me for the magic word!

Are you curious about different relationship styles? Whether you are currently in a polyamorous relationship or want to learn more, join our second annual retreat for poly and poly curious GBTQ men!

10/18/2023

Don't anybody faint, but there's a new blog post at Q***r Spiritual Counseling!!

This question was posted on a meme this morning on FB (where I live some of my social life, I admit) in a gay men's touch group, and instead of scrolling past it, I responded to it. I answered...

05/25/2022

From Rabbi Isaac Saposnik
Dear Friends:
The horror of what happened yesterday in Uvalde is almost too much to comprehend. They were children. And they were killed by a child. How is that possible? This is not how it's supposed to be.
When we send our kids to school, we should expect them to learn, to grow, to run around, to make friends, to thrive. We should expect them to come home and tell us all about their day ... or, more likely, not tell us all about their day. We should expect them to clear the table, to take too long putting on their pajamas, to forget to brush their teeth. We should expect them to be loud and funny and beautiful and full of energy. And we should expect them, as they always are, to be even more beautiful as they sleep peacefully in their beds.
We shouldn't expect them to be killed. And yet, we see this happening more and more. I was nearly ten years old the first time I heard about a school shooting. Many of the kids in Uvalde were even younger -- and they didn't just hear about it, they experienced it. I'll say it again: this is not how it's supposed to be.
If you're struggling with how to talk with your kids about such unspeakable moments, this Los Angeles Times article https://www.latimes.com/.../texas-school-shooting-how-to... may be helpful. And if you're looking for words of the prayer in a moment such as this, Alden Solovy has a beautiful piece on Ritualwell. https://ritualwell.org/ritual/survivors-school-shootings
Ezekiel 16:6 says: "When I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you: 'Live in spite of your blood.' Yea, I said to you: 'Live in spite of your blood.'" May the blood senselessly spilled in Texas -- and in Buffalo, and in far too many other places over these past weeks, months, and years -- call us to lives of meaning, impact, justice, peace, and love.
With hope for a better tomorrow,
Isaac

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12/27/2020

I don't always expect the New York Times to read my mind, but surprise!

The pandemic has brought out a nasty puritanism.

12/25/2020

A rabbi’s drash/lesson on the Christmas story:

The world didn’t change with the birth of a baby. Christmas represented a commitment to a process of change that would last 33 years in its first phase with moments of terrible demoralization along the way.

We all are changing and repairing our world now as fast as we can. But remember the Christmas story, the Joseph story, the story of Honi the Circle Maker and the carob tree. We need to be in this for a very long haul, working for some changes that will take us a lifetime and for some changes that we won’t live to see. And we need to be ready for moments of demoralization along the way.

Blessed be the moment of beginning, blessed be the long and non-linear process of change, blessed be the fruit of our labors, which will ripen in its time. B’karov b’yameinu. May it be soon and in our days, but whenever. B’eyt ratzon HaShem. In the time of God’s desiring.