The Other Candidate
The earth is rotating just enough to reveal the first rays of sun on this Election Day 2012. A certain calm pervaded Kabbalah classes yesterday after weeks of expressing worries and concerns about the election. Perhaps it was tiredness or resignation or the anticipation of acting on convictions. Often the most challenging for us is […]
The Doors on the Bus Go Shut and Open
The doors on the bus closed as he answered my question, “Come to see me on Sunday at 10 a.m.” I have told this story many times about Reb Yossel, a chassidic Rebbe in Jerusalem who I was privileged to know when I was studying in Israel at age 17. The bus incident occurred when […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
“I do not run like a man running aimlessly.”
There are those that argue that competition is a basic human instinct. No doubt an event such as the Olympics brings out the best and the worst that this human instinct has to offer. There is another Olympics going on simultaneously in London—the Paralympics. While the Olympics draw over 13,000 athletes from 205 Olympic teams […]
Light from the Tragedy in Aurora
As some of you have asked—what is the 9 days of the month of Av (which began last Thursday night and culminates with a public fast day this coming Sunday) and its relation to mourning and a heightened awareness of harm? There has been a long standing Jewish tradition, “When Av enters we diminish in […]