Meditations

MEDITATION: On Moshe’s Mistake and Being People of Growth (Parashat Chukat-Balak)

/ Meditations, Chukat, חֻקַּת, Balak, בָּלָק

In the incident of the rock, Moshe says to the people, before he hits the rock, Shimu na hamorim, “listen up, you rebels” (Numbers 20:10). In this meditation, we explore the ways that such harsh words and negative assessments, both internal and external, hurt us, and we consider the possibility of substituting for such harshness […]

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MEDITATION: Turning Towards Our Own Central Light (Parashat Beha’alotecha)

/ Beha'alotecha, בְּהַעֲלֹתְךָ, Meditations

The menorah lights were lit in a way that they all pointed inwards towards the central shaft, the core of the menorah. In this meditation, we explore what that means for us internally, first finding our own place of centered, stable alignment, and then inviting all the parts of us that are so habitually focused

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MEDITATION: Learning to Return to Stillness at Sinai (Shavu’ot)

/ Meditations, Shavu'ot

In this meditation, we explore a midrash that teaches that at Mount Sinai, at each divine utterance, the people’s souls flew out of their bodies and had to be returned, and also that at each utterance, the people ran backwards 12 mil and angels had to be lead them back. We explore our own tendency

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MEDITATION: Counted in Love — Loved into Counting (Parashat Bamidbar)

/ Bamidbar, בְּמִדְבַּר, Meditations

This meditation offers an opportunity to inhabit this experience of being counted by God with love. (Click image to read more)

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MEDITATION: The Jubilee Year and Your Return to Yourself (Parashat Behar-Bechukotai)

/ Meditations, Behar, בְּהַר, Bechukotai, בְּחֻקֹּתַי

In this meditation, we explore the yovel (jubilee) year’s instruction to return “each person to his holding,” understanding this internally as referring to a return to our soul, to our essence, after an inevitable distancing and shutting down through life and social and cutlural norms. Using bird imagery and river imagery which both emerge from

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MEDITATION: Our Inner Shabbat Resting Place (Parashat Emor)

/ Meditations, Emor, אֱמֹר

Shabbat is the first of the holidays listed in this week’s parsha. In this meditation, we explore what it means to disidentify with our work and to find inside ourselves our inner Shabbat Resting Place. We notice the fluttering of our anxious parts, like little birds, and help them come to rest, like Noah’s dove,

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ESSAY: From “Less Than” To Overflowing With Love (Parashat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim)

/ Meditations, Acharei Mot, אַחֲרֵי מוֹת, Kedoshim, קְדֹשִׁים

All the other judgments and lenses — the reason you are “less than” — they are like chaff that gets blown away in the wind, leaving behind the core kernel of who you are, the solidness of your inherent sacredness. (Click image to read more)

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MEDITATION: From “Less Than” to Overflowing With Love (Parashat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim)

/ Meditations, Acharei Mot, אַחֲרֵי מוֹת, Kedoshim, קְדֹשִׁים

The section of mitzvot at the begininng of Parashat Kedoshim invites us into a radical re-invisioning of how we structure society and see ourselves and each other. It is inviting us to move from a power dominated perspective in which some are considered “less than” to a consciousness that is centered on love and the

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MEDITATION: Being the Kohen for Our Afflicted Parts (Parashat Tazria-Metzora)

/ Tazria, תַזְרִיעַ, Meditations, Metzora, מְּצֹרָע

In this meditation, we practice inhabiting our inner kohen, our capacity to be God’s representative on earth. Like the kohen — vera’ah hakohen — we look at our own tzaru’a, afflicted parts, through this divine lens, seeing our afflictions with optimisim and spaciousness and steadfast love, confident and patient about our own process of healing

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