Parsha

two boys sitting on gray wood plank

QUICK THOUGHT: “Love Your Neighbor as Yourself”: Reverse the Verse (Parashat Kedoshim)

Reverse the verse: Love yourself as you would love a friend. (Click image to read more)

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MEDITATION: Kamokha: As You Love Yourself

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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QUICK THOUGHT: Enter With Only This (Parashat Acharei Mot)

If you want to come into the divine sanctuary, you cannot do so with “kol et,” weighed down by all of time, by all the traums of the past and the worries over the future. Enter only with “zot,” with this moment. (Click image to read more)

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SHORT ESSAY: The Hidden Treasure Inside Us (Parashat Metzora)

(Originally published in 2021) This afflication is indeed a gift. (Click image to read more)

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

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)

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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WOW (Word of the Week): וידם, “He was still and Silent” (Parashat Shemini)

In the aftermath of tragedy, Aharon encountered a different, quieter aspect of God — the ability to sit still with pain, not to get ride of it or fix it, but simply to be present with it . . . (Click image to read more)

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SHORT ESSAY: No Need For Extra (Parashat Shemini)

(Originally published in 2019) God’s Glory fills the Tabernacle. What happens next is extra. (Click image to read more)

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WOW (Word of the Week): ויקרא, Vayikra — The Call to Come Close (Parashat Vayikra)

And to us, too, God calls lovingly, a constant call to come close. (Click image to read more)

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MEDITATION: All Parts Have a Place (Parashat Pekudei)

We see and honor each of our internal parts as having a place insde us, just as Moshe saw and anointed each of the vessels of the Mishkan (Tabernacle). (Click image to read more and listen)

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