Do you believe things happen for a reason? I do. More often than not, when something happens in my life, it isn’t long before I can see why. And when I undertand the reason why something happened – whether that “something” was good or bad – I get a sense that God has a hand …
Builders working near the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland found a message in a bottle written by seven former prisoners and buried in a cement wall.These men left a simple message written in pencil: Just their names, the numbers that had been tattooed on their arms, and their home towns in Poland …
If You Were Going to Put a Message in a Bottle, What Would You Write? Read More »
Jews in Israel and around the world will celebrate Israel’s Independence Day, Yom Ha’Atzmaut, this coming Wednesday. April 29. I once wrote an essay on how to make this holiday not just a secular observance but a spiritual one – a subject right up my alley. It was published in Sh’ma‘s bi-annual anthology published (Living Words …
The current economy has many people feeling as if they are constantly falling into an endless financial hole, the unknown territory of joblessness, the fear-filled arena of homelessness, or simply a world of many unknowns and thus, much uncertainty. In our current times, few of us are free of some effects-real or perceived-of the recession, …
Understanding the Process of Walking Helps Us Move Through Difficult Times Read More »
Passover is over and bread is back in the house! More specifically, on Shabbat, we ate challah! I’m a bread lover, so a Shabbat during Passover week spent eating hard, cold, tasteless matzoh rather than soft, warm-out-of-the-oven, sweet bread just doesn’t seem right. I know, I know… Passover involves eating matzoh, the Bread of Freedom…the Bread …
I consider myself very trusting…possibly to a fault. Some might call me gullible. Maybe this is because of the high degree of trust I try to achieve in God, in “destiny,” in things working out they way they are supposed to, in a Divine Hand in life. And I like to trust people, too, to …
When A Trusting Person Can't – or Shoudn't – Trust Read More »
You don’t hear much about Hurricane Katrina anymore. However, whenever I do hear something in the news about someone continuing to help support clean up and rebuilding efforts in the New Orleans area post Katrina, my ears perk up. Why? Because I compiled Jewish celebrity cookbook whose purpose was to help feed those affected by …
As my daughter left this morning to attend Easter Sunday services with her non-Jewish boyfriend, I thought about what she might take away from that service. I know she won’t be thinking about Easter from a personal growth standpoint as I do. And, despite my own Jewish leanings and upbringing, as always, I look at …
How a Jew – or Anyone – Can Use Easter as a Tool for Personal Growth Read More »
Just as most Jews are finishing up their spring cleaning and getting ready to burn the last of their chametz, which we do on the morning before the first night of Passover, we get a chance to stop and do something totally different. It’s something we haven’t done for 28 years. Actually, it’s something we haven’t …
Don't Miss the Chance to Bless the Sun This Wednesday! Read More »
On the spring Jewish holiday of Passover, Jews all over the world ask questions. Traditionally, we ask just four questions, and we are supplied with answers either in the Haggadah, the prayer book used during the seder, or home service conducted on Passover, or by participants at the seder. The questions – and the answers …
Today was April Fool’s Day. No one played a joke on me. I didn’t play a joke on anyone else. Well, maybe God played one on me…All I know for sure is that despite the name of the day, yesterday I was a fool, but today I am wiser. You see, I did something foolish. …
As I was preparing for my monthly podcast on Conversations with Mrs. Claus (www.thefamilyyak.com), I was going over my subject – Passover, which is fast approaching, and thinking about ways to talk about this Jewish holiday so that people of all faiths and spiritual backgrounds would find the podcast interesting. I realized that in the story …
What Can We Learn From Moses and the Passover Story? Read More »
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