As Jews around the world usher in the Sabbath with the candle lighting ritual, they ask God to spread over them “wings of peace…sukkat shalom.” They ask for “Shabbat shalom…Sabbath peace.” While some Jews actually will feel that peace during the 25 hours of this week’s Shabbat, I’m sure the survivors of the earthquake in …
We all remember how our parents words impacted us. We can recite the words verbatim that scarred us the most deeply. For example, I remember when I told my mother I wanted to become a writer. She knew I liked to read novels and enjoyed creative writing, so she correctly assumed I wanted to write …
Today, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jews can have a dream, too. We can dream of peace in Israel. We can dream of religious equality for Jews all over the world. We can dream of an end to anti-Semitism. (For more on this, click here.) We also can have more personal dreams. Do you …
Today I pondered the benefits of being gullible, this after being approached by a scammer this past week and by being told that Facebook would donate money to Haiti if I posted a particular status message today. The Facebook bit seemed par for the course: Post something in your status bar, and they would donate …
Today I was in the flow. I told my writer’s group that I would handle two things related to one of my book projects. Within two hours the phone rang and someone I called six weeks ago in reference to one of these tasks actually returned my call. This helped ensure that I could easily …
Today I found myself wondering if I believe that God punishes us. I know the Torah offers examples of God punishing people. For example, there’s the story of Moses not being allowed to enter the Promised Land, because he hit a rock rather than talking to it. I just don’t believe that the bad things that …
I’ve been thinking a lot about teachers lately. In Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of Our Fathers: Chapter 1, Mishna 6, “Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Perachya says, ‘Make for yourself a teacher and acquire for yourself a friend, and judge each person favorably.” Leaving the latter part of this teaching for another time, I’ll focus on the first …
The first question, and also the shortest question, God ask in the Torah has just one word. “Ayeka?” In English, this means “Where are you?” For an all-knowing God, this seems a silly question, but the query has little to do with physical location. And it’s a question not asked to locate someone physically but …
With the Blue Moon rising, tonight we ring in not only the New Year, but a whole new decade. And we do so at amidst a time of change. We’ve seen climate weather, world economic changes and political and government leadership changes. In spiritual, mystical and metaphysical circles, everyone is talking about and predicting change, …
A Kabbalistic Approach to Becoming a Change Agent in 2010 Read More »
Most people don’t realize that through its choice of words, the Old Testament places emphasis on goal setting. In fact, it seems that God expects us to set targets for ourselves and at least to try to hit them. In other words, we are supposed to take the time to come up with resolutions or …
I’ve spent an enormous amount of time over the last week throwing away all sorts of stuff. Primarily, however, I’ve thrown away accumulated papers. I can’t believe how many papers I seem to save and collect. I have piles and files filled with papers of all sorts. Most of these papers I must have thought …
On Christmas Eve, I’m once again, like every year, struck by the wonderful example Jesus provides all people – Jew and non-Jew alike – of a human being who achieved full spiritual and human potential. (I wrote a short piece about this earlier today in my Examiner.com column, but I wanted to expand upon the …
Jesus Provides Model for Achievement of Spiritual and Human Potential Read More »
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