Yom Kippur
The things that cause us shame on a regular basis are not the “sins” that we are repenting for on Yom Kippur. When do we generally feel self-critical? What types of actions make us feel shame and embarrassment? Such moments of inner discomfort often come from a social situation in which we have behaved […]
QUICK THOUGHT: What’s Not in the Viduy (Yom Kippur) Read More »
Perhaps there is really only one sin, one mistake we make in a thousand different ways, and that one sin is our failure to live lefanekha, before You. (Click image to read more)
QUICK THOUGHT: “Lefanekha” — Before You (Yom Kippur) Read More »
What we are doing in Kol Nidre is acknowledging our inability to sustain change on our own, admitting out loud our powerlessness to make the improvements necessary — through our own will power — to move forward in our lives. (Click image to read more)
SHORT ESSAY: Kol Nidre as Surrender (Yom Kippur) Read More »
We are all unwilling prophets of divine love. (Click image to read more)
SHORT ESSAY: Yonah and the Resistance to Love (Yom Kippur) Read More »
Through the inner work of teshuva, some shift happens inside oneself with respect to these sins — “they become for him” something different, something better; they start out seeming like sins but they end up, in an atmosphere of love, seeming like merits. (Click image to read more)
SHORT ESSAY: Turning Misdeeds into Merits (Teshuvah) Read More »
In this meditation from my Psalms group, we work with the phrase: כי עמך הסליחה, “For with You is forgiveness” (Ps 130:4), finding the parts inside of us that hold shame and regret and remorse for harm we have caused others and ourselves, and providing them with a sense of the soft bed of forgiveness
MEDITATION: For With You is Forgiveness (Ps 130:4) Read More »