Hidden Names
by Dr. David Sanders The filmmaker, Alan Berliner, in the preamble to his documentary film (The Sweetest Sound) about the names we are given, referred to his own name as that “simple label assigned to me the day I was born.” He went on to say that his name, “has worked itself deep inside my […]
What has been, Already is.
by Melanie Gruenwald “What has been, already is; and what will be has already been.”— Ecclesiastes The sages wrestled with this verse. How can what will be already exist? Rabbi Yehuda offers a curious image: If a person says to you: Is it possible that the entire world was once water, and that the world’s […]
It Takes a Village
by Dr. David Sanders As the former Hebrew slaves encamped around Mount Sinai they were given their mission: “Be a light unto the nations.” That phrase was the seed for a project to bring much needed solar lamps to rural communities in Uganda. The scope of the project expanded to also provide filtration systems for […]
Day 36: Lovingkindness within Foundation
Connecting to the love and generosity that flows to us from the Mystery.Opening ourselves to the Sourceso our actions are filled with kindness and grace.— Rabbi Yael Levy, Journey Through the Wilderness Tonight we mark the 36th day of the Omer, aligned in the mystical tradition with Chesed sheb’Yesod—Lovingkindness within Foundation. Chesed is expansive, overflowing […]
Unmasking a Mask
by David Sanders For almost twenty years the Denver Hospice featured a bi-annual auction of masks created by artists and celebrities across the country. Through the Mask Project they raised millions of dollars. I was curious if there was a connection between the creation of masks and the mission of hospice care. Durning the heyday […]
Dancing Across the Sea
by Melanie Gruenwald We begin our Time: Present Moment Awareness course with the question- A fish is to water, as a person is to what…? How can it be, we are swimming through time, without even paying attention to it? The days pass, the years pass, we age (if we’re lucky), but how are we […]
Threads
by Dr. David Sanders What are the main threads that are woven together to form the cloth we call Kabbalah Experience? Posing the question in that manner already reveals a first thread—mastering the use of metaphor. The lens through which the early Kabbalists viewed sacred text was to move from the literal to the metaphoric […]
Sometimes there are good funerals
In loving memory of Avi Halzel Sometimes there are good funerals.The kind where a person has lived a long, full life and dies peacefully, surrounded by the people they love. And then there are funerals you wish didn’t exist. The ones for young people. Good people. People whose presence alone made the world better. Today […]
Strings Attached
by Dr. David Sanders Every so often we get to go back to the beginning, circle back to where it all started. More than two decades ago I sat around a dining room table, early morning on a Thursday, with four men, two who I knew and two who were new to me. Dr. Ryan […]
Seeing Through the Glass: Perception, Choice, and the Light We Carry
by Melanie Gruenwald “Ordinarily a person sees what is familiar to her experience… Her eyes are at the center of her universe.” — Allen Afterman, Kabbalah and Consciousness What we see is never neutral. We see through the lenses of our own stories—our time, place, assumptions, wounds, and hopes. Ordinary perception, as Allen Afterman suggests, […]