Meditations

MEDITATION: What Divine Presence Feels like Inside (Parashat Bechukotai)

/ Meditations, Bechukotai, בְּחֻקֹּתַי

In this meditation, we explore five phrases from the blessings God promises us if we walk in God’s ways, moving thorugh various aspects of feeling God’s indwelling inside us, from presence and non-rejecting acceptance to slowing down into steadiness, letting go of burdens and learning to stand tall and confident. The five phrases are: 1) […]

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MEDITATION: Negative Self Talk and Our Divine Essence (Parashat Behar)

/ Meditations, Behar, בְּהַר

In this meditation, we look at the prohibition against ona’at devarim, speaking in a way that is shaming or hurtful to another person, and we apply it to ourselves and to our own internal criticism and shaming and negative self-talk. We take some time to notice it and shine a light on this inner talk,

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MEDITATION: Peah: Rest Your Inadequacy Here (Parashat Emor)

/ Meditations, Emor, אֱמֹר

In this meditation, we explore the mitzvah of peah, of leaving the corners of your fields unharvested for the needy. We consider the needy parts of ourselves, the parts that want love and attention and the parts that feel impoverished and inadequate in some way, and we invite those needy parts to rest in the

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MEDITATION: Kamokha: As You Love Yourself

/ Meditations, Kedoshim, קְדֹשִׁים

The commandment to “love your neighbor as you love yourself” assumes and depends upon a strong love of self. In this meditation, we work on this “yourself” side of the command, using the Torah’s words here to move through an exploration of how we reject and hate parts of ourselves to befriending and loving those

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MEDITATION: Gevurah: Strength and Empowerment (Sefirat HaOmer)

/ Meditations, Sefirat HaOmer

In this second week of counting the Omer, we are working on the quality of gevurah. In this meditation, we explore two sides of gevurah — a) power, strength, might and courage, and b) restraint and holding back. We feel into our own core strength in our bodies and also sense the way that God’s

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MEDITATION SCRIPT: For Seder Night (Passover)

/ Meditations, Passover

The seder is a place to process our suffering, our narrow straits, our Mitzrayim, in a holding container of luxury and spaciousness and protection. (Click image to read more)

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MEDITATION: Moving into “Merkhav Yah” — a Place of Expansiveness (Passover)

/ Meditations, Passover

In this meditation, we explore the obligation to see yourself as if you personally left Egypt by understanding the leaving of Mitzrayim as the leaving of a narrow constricted emotional space and entering into merkhav Yah (based on Psalm 118 in Hallel), a place of divine expansiveness which is open and inclusive and welcoming of

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MEDITATION: Release and Renewal (Parashat HaChodesh, Passover and Parashat Bo)

/ Bo, Meditations, Passover

The first commandment the Isarelites receive as a nation is to mark the new moon. In this meditation, we look at this commandment as an invitation to remember our own capacity for renewal. (Click image to read more)

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MEDITATION: The Stillness that Can Hold Pain (Parashat Shemini)

/ Shemini, שְּׁמִינִי, Meditations

This meditation connects Aharon’s stance of demamah, of stillness, at the death of his sons, to the “still, small voice” of God that Eliyahu experienced, understanding stillness as a divine point implanted in each of us that can hold any pain, no matter how intense. We work first on developing a sense of this stillness

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MEDITATION: Amalek, Ukraine, and Moshe’s Strong Arms of Faith (Parashat Zakhor)

/ Zakhor, Meditations

In this meditation, we imagine the war with Amalek with all its tenuousness and feel inside us the fear and hopelessness that come from a cruel unprovoked attack by the powerful upon the weak. We allow ourselves to feel that gnawing doubt that evil will triumph in relation to Amalek, and in relation to the

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