Shoftim, שֹׁפְטִים Judges 16:18-21:9
This place of refuge is not a place of judgment or perfection, but a place to be held in the mess of your own life with love and forgiveness. (Click image to read more)
ESSAY: Our Inner City of Refuge (Parashat Shoftim) Read More »
In this meditation, we work on finding and strengthening places of refuge inside us where there is forgiveness and atonement and healing, where we are held in all our imperfections and returned to a sense of belonging. Sources:Deuteronomy 19:1-8Rashi on Deuteronomy 19:3Psalm 27:4Maimonides, Laws of the Murderer and Loss of Life, 8: 5-6, 11Psalm 91:1Deuteronomy
MEDITATION: Our Inner City of Refuge (Parashat Shoftim) Read More »
For a person — even in the midst of war — is still a tree of the field, still steady, majestic and connected. (Click image to read more)
ESSAY: Your True Tree Self (Parashat Shoftim) 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 »
We come into this world with a faint memory of having once been part of something much larger than ourselves. We have a vague sense of incompleteness, that we are missing something essential. We are hungry, but not for food, never quite satisfied, always yearning. We are deeply and relentlessly lonely, even when we
SHORT ESSAY: On Becoming Whole (Parashat Shoftim) Read More »