Tekiah shevarim-teruah Tekiah. The long steady Tekiah sounds of the shofar always surround the other more broken sounds of the shevarim and the teruah. In this meditation, we consider the shevarim and teruah sounds to represent our brokenness and suffering, and the Tekiahs that stand on either side to represent the divine container […]
MEDITATION: The Tekiah Container for Our Brokenness (Rosh Hashanah) Read More »
In this meditation, we explore the bikkurim (first fruits) ceremony as a celebration of homecoming, both physical, to the land, and in our meditation, spiritual, a continual return to the home of peace and rest inside ourselves that is our true home, a place that is not tight like Mitzrayim, but flowing like the land
MEDITATION: On Bikkurim and Homecoming (Parashat Ki Tavo) Read More »
This meditation deals with the mitzvah of helping to raise up a fellow’s fallen animal. Hakem takim imo, “you shall surely raise [it] up together with him.” The meditation considers this verse in terms of our experience of emotional “falling” on life’s journey, exploring some different ways of understanding what this falling is, and then
MEDITATION: Lifting Each Other When We Fall (Parashat Ki Tetzei) Read More »
This meditation deals with the phrase ki ha’adam etz hasadeh, “for a person is a tree of the field” (Deuteronomy 21:19), exploring what it might feel like to really imagine yourself as a tree, the majesty and the stillness, the groundedness and the sense of connection. This phrase is said in the context of war
MEDITATION: Your True Tree Self (Parashat Shoftim) Read More »
In this meditation, we consider the mitzvah of re’ayon, of coming to the Temple three times a year to “be seen” by God, a mitzvah which appears at the end of our parsha. We explore two aspects of the feeling of being seen by God, the feeling of having one’s suffering be seen and the
MEDITATION: Being Seen by God (Parashat Re’eh) Read More »
In this meditation, we get in touch with the ache of our hunger, our yearning, not for bread, but for connection to God, and we explore the different entry points . . . (Click image to read more)
MEDITATION: Our Hunger, But Not For bread (Parashat Eikev) Read More »
In this meditation, we explore what “this thing” is that they and maybe we don’t believe or trust in — what stops us from fully moving forward on our journey to the promised land, to our full potential destiny? (click image to read more and listen)
MEDITATION: The Faith We Need For the Journey (Parashat Devarim) Read More »
Serach, the daughter of Asher, lived a very long time — she lived through the descent to Egypt and the enslavement, the redemption, the desert, and the entrance to the land of Israel. She is listed in our parsha in the census (Numbers 26:46), one of the only women to be mentioned, and she is
MEDITATION: The Steady Presence of Serach bat Asher (Parashat Pinchas) Read More »
In the story of Balaam, we see Balaam undergoing a process of coming into greater alignment with God’s will for him. He begins out of alignment, in opposition really, and ends up becoming a vessel for God’s blessing in the world. In this this meditation, we use Balaam’s story as a way to explore our
MEDITATION: Coming into Alignment with the Divine (Parashat Balak) Read More »
In this meditation, we look at the story of the snake bites and Moshe’s placement of a snake on a pole for the people to look at in order to be healed. We explore what this story teaches us about how to pray for physical and emotional healing — the need to see very clearly
MEDITATION: How to Pray — The Snake Story (Parashat Chukat) Read More »