Kabbalah at Work
I want to thank Rabbi Tirzah Firestone for trekking down the Boulder turnpike for the last three months to share with us her exquisite style of teaching. We were on her loom, creating together a quilt of the garment of light that the Zohar texts illuminate for us. Her guiding hands and melodic voice of […]
Unbounded Moment
Many of you may not be aware that out of necessity I have a second job. It starts the moment I enter the house and two little girls come rushing toward me. Isabel, the “younger” one, misses me more than her sister and wraps her little arms around my neck, a tight squeeze. Last […]
Reading Between the Candles
Jews have been in America since before it was America. The first synagogue in America, Shearith Israel, was established in 1654 by Jews fleeing the Inquisition in Brazil and finding a safe haven in New Holland. More than a hundred years later, Shearith Israel’s Rabbi, Gershom Seixas, delivered this message on the first national holiday […]
If the Sole Fits
What do Bill Clinton (2007), Bono (2005), Karen Armstrong (2008) and Sugata Mitra (2013) have in common? They are winners of the TED prize, an annual award of $1million presented to people whose ideas and passions can spark global change. Sugata Mitra wants to spark a revolution in learning by implementing SOLE, self-organized learning […]
David and Goliath
This time David was Goliath. The scoreboard at the final buzzer: Jews 43 Catholics 39. It was the second (annual) basketball game organized by University of Colorado students demarcated by religion. In addition to the two Sanders boys and their friends, the Jewish boys recruited an Israeli named David, a junior who had come to […]
“Mind-Fur-Ness”
“A Tzadik in Peltz” is a Yiddish aphorism that describes a person who is (self) righteous but does not turn his or her righteousness towards others. Literally it means, “A righteous person in a (fur) coat.” As Rabbi Menachem of Kotkz explained: The Tzadik (in Peltz), warmly encased in protective fur, cannot appreciate the shivering […]
Before Kindergarten
I started the blog this week with the following thought: Two year old Eva (Sanders) has come up with some wonderful sayings on her quest to learn the English language. When I typed the word learn I stopped. How does a child learn English or any language? We typically think about learning as a conscious […]
The Yin and Yang of Grief
According to legend, the panda was once an all-white bear. When a small girl tried to save a panda cub from being attacked by a leopard, the leopard killed the girl instead. Pandas came to her funeral wearing armbands of black ashes. As they wiped their eyes, hugged each other, and covered their ears, they […]
Portrait of Jewish America
Alarm bells sounded earlier this month with the release of the findings from a major Pew Foundation survey of American Jews. A Portrait of Jewish Americans is the first national study in 13 years assessing a host of demographic data on religious identity, beliefs, practices and attitudes, rates of intermarriage and affiliation of Jews […]
Weaving Trust
It may be exactly 10 years. I don’t recall the exact date but it was a Thursday in October 2003 that five men gathered at 7:30 a.m. to start learning Kabbalah together. What could be more traditional than five men, each of us well over 40 years old, gathering early in the morning trying to […]