We all have a donkey part, a part of us that knows, somatically, energetically, intuitively, something that other parts of us do not know or believe. In the Balaam story, it was the donkey who saw the angel standing in the way and refused to move forward on the path that Balaam was insisting on. […]
QUICK THOUGHT: Listening to Our Donkey Part (Parashat Balak) Read More »
The story of Balaam is the story of coming into greater alignment with God’s will. We are often like Balaam, struggling against our divine destiny. We hear God’s voice faintly in the night while the guests are sleeping and the external world is quiet – a part of us discerns what our path is
SHORT ESSAY: Coming into Alignment with the Divine (Parashat Balak) 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 »
To speak to the rock is to show the people the essential unity of all God’s creations on this earth. (Click image to read more)
QUICK THOUGHT: The Unity of God’s Creations (Parashat Chukat) Read More »
Here is how you pray: you have to take whatever is bothering you — the snake of the matter — and put it up on a pole and turn your heart towards heaven with reference to this specific thing, turn this specific thing over to God. (Click image to read more)
QUICK THOUGHT: How To Pray — The Snake Story (Parashat Chukat) Read More »
I feel drawn once again to the idea of not forcing, to the power and the effectiveness and the fundamental truth of not forcing. To hit the rock as Moshe did, not once, but twice (Numbers 20:11), in order to obtain water, is to use force, aggression, to assert one’s will, to coerce the rock
QUICK THOUGHT: Not Forcing (Parashat Chukat) 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 »
The hole that swallowed up Korah and his band is a hole we are familiar with. For us it is not a hole in the earth, but a hole inside us, the gaping hole of wanting, the relentless sense of lack, the core emptiness, that surely also lay behind Korah’s actions, that made him and
SHORT ESSAY: The Legacy of Korach’s Hole (Parashat Korach) Read More »
In this meditation, we explore the feelings behind Korach’s rebellion, the sense of not-enoughness, of lack, of wanting, that in some way we all feel inside, the sense of a hole inside, which for Korach, manifested outside him as the earth swallowing him up. We spend our lives dealing with these holes as Korach did,
MEDITATION: The Hole Inside Us (Parashat Korach) Read More »
In order to quell the fear and the doubt and the terrible feeling of not knowing, the groundlessness of uncertainy, we try to gain some certainty. We try “latur,” to scout out information . . . (Click image to read more)
WOW (Word of the Week): לתור, To Scout Out (Parashat Shelach) Read More »