Over a decade ago my husband became a Jew by Choice, which means he converted to Judaism. However, at the time, I vaguely remember someone-maybe the rabbi-telling me that non-Jews don’t really “convert” to Judaism. They actually just make an “affirmation of” Judaism. My friend Reb Yitzi Miller told me basically the same thing the …
Ah, it’s my favorite Shabbat–the Shabbat when Jews all over the world read the portion in the Old Testament, or Torah, called Beshalach. In this section of Exodus (13:17-17:16) the Israelites are pursued by the Egyptians and trapped at the Red Sea, until the sea parts and they travel to safety on the other side. …
I’ve been trying to listen to my intuition lately. I know I have some intuitive–I hesitate to call them psychic–abilities. I think they’ve scared me, so I haven’t really pursued them (tried to enhance them) in the last few years. However, I decided this year I’d really like to open to my “sixth sense,” if …
Do you think your prayers fall on deaf ears? Do you pray and pray and pray, all the while thinking that no one hears your words? Do you look around and see that nothing changes despite your prayers? Do you wonder why you can’t hear God responding to your requests? Today, get really quiet. Listen …
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 …
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