Transforming Darkness to Light
Mind is the Master Power that molds and makes And Man is Mind And evermore he takes The tool of Thought Shaping what he wills Brings forth a thousand joys A thousand ills James Allen begins his book, “As Man Thinketh” with this poem—setting the stage for an understanding of the Kabbalah principle of how […]
Sacred Luminosity
On December 21, 1978 an editorial in the New York Times by Anne Roiphe caused a stir in me and many others. Her topic was the celebration of Christmas in her Jewish home, choosing to celebrate it and not celebrate Hanukkah. At the time, Anne was married to a man who was not Jewish but […]
Tree of Awareness
Allen Afterman begins his book Kabbalah and Consciousness by declaring that “as much as Kabbalah is a philosophy it is even more a map of transcendent experience.” There are two important ideas that Afterman touches upon. The first is that Kabbalah is a philosophy. This may come as a surprise to some because Kabbalah emerged […]
A Call to Arms
On election night 2016 those who are good at math were the first to realize that the “path” to being elected President was red and not blue. It became progressively clear that the math would not add up for Hillary Clinton. Even if she would wind up with more overall votes the state Electoral College […]
Ob-Jecting
It started this week with a teacher talking about her student’s objection to her defining a noun as pertaining to a “person, place, thing or idea.” The student, a Buddhist monk trying to learn English, asked: What about animals? Her suggestion that animals are nouns because they are “things” The monk objected to the teacher […]
A Woman Precedent
In her world filled with unicorns, ponies and flying Pegasus a 5 year old girl looked up to ask, “A woman running for President?” Had my daughter lived in Pakistan, India, Israel, Germany of Great Britain, her incredulity would have been tempered by the women who served (and serve) those countries as heads of state. […]
Exit Polls
The setting is rural Connecticut. Falls Village is just beyond the town of Goshen and just before the town of Canaan. You slow down once you exit the highway to 35 MPH, winding your way through small towns, eyes drawn to the eaves of churches and foggy cemeteries and season changing leaves of red, yellow, […]
The Spiritual Revolution
Copernicus did not have it all figured out. Neither did Galileo. They had the right instincts but got caught up in circles. Kepler refined it by thinking elliptically but it took Sir Isaac Newton to finalize the heliocentric view of our solar system with the discovery of gravity. Why did it take so long for […]
No Strings Attached
These are not whirling dervishes about to place their hats upon their heads. The caption under this photo reads: “Karen (Berg) charging the Red String of the Kabbalah Centre.” In 2012 the Kabbalah Centre led an Energy Tour to Israel which included a visit to the Tomb of Rachel in Bethlehem “to connect and charge […]
Olympic Spiritual
Every two years athletes from around the world gather for a ritual called the Olympics. The events, whether winter or summer, are predicated upon sacrifice and culminate in a solemn ceremony of the victorious; the ritual of standing upon a podium to receive an Olympic medal. For the gold medal recipient the ceremony includes the […]