Defining Moments
A story I have often told to illustrate our relationship with time is about a man at a party commiserating with others that he had lived more than half his life. The concept of “counting up our days” means that while we may be aware of the quantity of our days, the quality is never […]
Dekalb Emergency 911
Dekalb Emergency 911, what is the address of the emergency? I will get the paramedics started. Are you with him now? And is he awake? Yes he is. I am sending the paramedics now. Stay on the line and I will tell you exactly what to do next. The above 911 transcript occurs a […]
Random Acts of Synchronicity
Legend has it that in 1982 Anne Herbert scrawled the words “practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty” on a place mat in a California restaurant and from there it randomly spread. About 10 years later Chuck Wall, a professor at Bakersfield College, recalls hearing about “random senseless acts of violence” and […]
Shades of Beauty
It’s not the word itself, it is the way she says it. Lorell Frysh who has been a friend and fellow teacher at Kabbalah Experience was born in South Africa. When she talks about people that move her she refers to them as lovely. It’s the way she says “lovely”. For many though “lovely” […]
The Risk of Love
A number of our students went to hear a spiritual teacher last week on the topic of Intimate Relationships and Authentic Awakening. This mystic teacher hails from Vienna and is currently living with his wife in Tel Aviv. Thomas Hubl is his name and he is relatively young. Some of those who attended added up […]
Because Who Is Perfect
There are stories that stick with you and this one about Moses Mendelssohn has been in the file system of my brain for some 30 years. It took just three words to find it on google: Moses Mendelssohn love. I relayed the story last week in class and enjoyed finding it with a bit more […]
Crossing the Tight Rope
The slow food movement launched a clever new Ad Campaign to heighten people’s awareness of the use of hormones and anti-biotics in the fattening and immunizing of factory farmed animals: “You eat what your food eats. Make sure its natural.” The safe sex movement got this awareness going a few decades ago with spreading […]
Why You Were Born
Early in the movie Slumdog Millionaire the main character as a participant on Who Wants to be a Millionaire needs to answer the question: What motto is inscribed on India’s national emblem? The answer stuck with me: Truth alone triumphs. In Jewish tradition there is a similar phrase “The seal of the Holy One […]
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 […]
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 […]