A Zohar in Every Nightstand
Daniel Matt, professor, scholar and student of Jewish mystical teachings arrives this Sunday at DIA. Dr. Matt’s scholar-in-residence week is a joint effort for the new Jewish learning collaborative of the Loup Jewish Community Center, Denver University’s Center for Judaic Studies and Kabbalah Experience. If you have time to ask only one question of […]
Snap, Crackle, Pop
The bullet entered the front window, traced its way through the living room, dining room and exited the back window. Heard, but unnoticed. The boy bowed down in the natural rhythm of bending the knee and then lowering the head and body, in praise of God. Noticed, but unheard. Many of us were […]
Extrospection
You won’t find it in the dictionary. It is how we take our new found insights and extend them outward. As soon as Yom Kippur is over –we start on the construction of a small hut structure called a Sukkah—which we will dwell in for seven days. Our Sukkah is located on our patio which […]
Yom Kippur 5773. Disentangled. To what degree?
Attachment to a certain way of thinking or being is what often does me in. I was standing today, on Yom Kippur, in the same room as the story I related last week of the young girl whose hair was entangled in a scrunchie. I could not unbutton the top button of my white robe […]
Blog for Yom Kippur 5773
I could have observed this scene anywhere, but it happened at our Rosh Hashanah Service—punctuating the opportunity to see it in the context of repentance and starting a new. A young girl was off with her friend playing and they decided to put their hair up in scrunchies. The imprecision of eight year old […]
Silence and Speaking Out
Reminder: We are gathering on the first day of Rosh Hashanah (Monday September 17th) for a Kabbalah Experience prayer, meditation and learning service from 10-1. Please RSVP or with questions to david@kabbalahexperience.com (we will also be gathering for Kol Nidrei—6:30 pm on Tuesday September 25 and the morning of Yom Kippur Wednesday September 26 from 10-1). […]
No Regrets
Can we live a life with “no regrets”—I would answer, “If we have acted on our regrets.” One of the first steps in atonement, after acknowledging whatever it is we are atoning for, is a deep sense of regret. In this third week of Elul we must feel our regrets but not become stuck in […]
50 Days of Repentance Week 2
When I was in graduate school studying Freud I came across a short paper by the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber in which, if I recall correctly, he takes Freud to task for advocating that the psychoanalyst’s role is to relieve the person of the “burden” of guilt. Buber was not concerning himself with Freud’s view […]
50 Days of Repentance
Those who follow this blog know that in the spring of each year we count together the 50 days from Passover to the next major holiday—Shavuot. This is called the counting of the Omer. Many teachers of Kabbalah draw inspiration from a small booklet written by Rabbi Simon Jacobson on the counting of the Omer […]
Vision Statement
News item from Jerusalem — It’s the latest prescription for ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who shun contact with the opposite sex: Glasses that blur their vision, so they don’t have to see women they consider to be immodestly dressed. Glasses with special blur-inducing stickers on their lenses are going for the “modest” price of $6. The […]