My Grandmother
by Dr. David Sanders Today, I sent a photograph taken a number of years ago to my older sister Sarah. It was an image taken of a gravestone at a cemetery in New York where our grandmother, who we never met, is buried. My father’s mother died a few short days after giving birth to […]
A New Story
by Dr. David Sanders Rabbi Sharon Brous, author of The Amen Effect and founder of IKAR in Los Angeles spoke this past Yom Kippur on the stories which we talk about ourselves, our people, and our society. In her analysis of one particular story regarding Abraham and his wives she concluded that our Jewish […]
Counting up: Tiferet
by Melanie Gruenwald Week3: Tiferet. This week, we are immersed in the third week of the counting of the Omer, experiencing the harmony and balance of Tiferet. We embody Tiferet as the holding of opposites. It seems to permeate everything these days. We are celebrating Israel’s Independence Day, while we are in […]
Five Sacred Minutes
by Melanie Gruenwald I recently re-started a practice of journaling every day for five sacred minutes. I sit with my journal, some pens that bring me joy, set the timer on my phone and write uninterrupted for five minutes. I started this practice when I was reading The Artists Way by Julia Cameron. The […]
Tearing Up
by Dr. David Sanders “Tears are the evidence of our inner life overflowing its boundaries, spilling over into consciousness. Wordless and spontaneous, they release us to the possibility of realignment, reunion, catharsis, intractable resistance short-circuited.” The quote is from a photograph book of tears taken by Rose-Lynn Fisher (The Topography of Tears). It is […]
It’s About Time
by Dr. David Sanders It’s about time. (For the first time, in a long time, I am teaching the course on the Kabbalah of Time. When I revisit a course, I want to update it). The last time I taught Time, Stephen Hawking was alive and his Brief History of Time was the classic in […]
Omer Reflections
by Melanie Gruenwald The period between Passover’s Second Seder and Shavuot is an auspicious time of counting for the Jewish people. We call this seven-week period, ‘Counting the Omer’ Kabbalists have connected this journey to a journey through the bottom seven sefirot- seven weeks, seven days in each week– seven sefirot informing each step of […]
Naming Rights
by David Sanders Look, it doesn’t always work out this way. If it does, it is interesting, dare I say provocative, when people’s last names are an uncanny reveal of a characteristic uniquely associated with them. It did not go unnoticed that the surname of the police officer who murdered George Floyd was Chauvin. I […]