This feeling, this problem, this difficulty you are having, this itself is what you can sanctify, what you can bring presence and honor to . . . (Click image to read more)
WOW (Word of the Week): הזה, “This” (Parashat Bo) Read More »
(Originally published in January 2021) The Israelites stand in the portal to freedom on the night of the fourteenth of Nissan, as the first-born plague rages around them. Their portal is marked by blood, the blood of the sheep they just sacrificed, but also, symbolically, the blood of their years of suffering. They are poised
SHORT ESSAY: Through the Doorway of Suffering (Parashat Bo) Read More »
In our childhood, an angel helps us choose survival, but at what cost? What is lost of ourselves and our voices in the choice? (Click image to read more)
WOW (Word of the Week): “Aral Sefatayim” — Reclaiming Our Voice (Parashat Va’era) Read More »
(Originally published in January 2021) For the Israelites, true redemption from slavery was not just a removal from danger and suffering, but a movement into relationship with God. (Click image to read more)
SHORT ESSAY: The Stages of Redemption (Parashat Va’era) Read More »
Where are they inside you, those abandoned parts of your own self? Invite them in and offer them some bread. This is the divine call of redemption. (Click image to read more)
WOW (Word of the Week): ואיו, “And Where is He?” (Parashat Shemot) Read More »
(Originally published last year) “And he [Moshe] looked and behold the bush was ablaze with fire, but the bush was not consumed.” This vision speaks of a place of invulnerability inside each of us that can withstand any blaze. (Click image to read more)
SHORT ESSAY: To Not be Consumed by the Blaze (Parashat Shemot) Read More »
What if, the next time you are sad or hurt or angry, you paused and reflected on the essential aliveness of these feelings, the way they feel intense and living inside you . . . .? (Click image to read more)
WOW (Word of the Week): ויחי, And He Lived (Parashat Vayechi) Read More »
This week’s parsha begins, Vayechi Yaakov, “Yaakov lived,” but it is a parsha about Yaakov’s death. In this meditation, we work on expanding our notion of aliveness in two ways: 1) As Yaakov had a very difficult life, but still vayechi, still loved, so we experiment with seeing our most difficult emotions as manifestations of
MEDITATION: On “Chayut,” Aliveness (Parashat Vayechi) Read More »
Goshen is the land of connection, the place where we arrive following all the strife of the book of Breishit, a place where we can glimpse the possibility of real connection and coming together. (Click image to read more)
WOW (Word of the Week): Goshen (Parashat Vayigash) Read More »
On that day, the earth shook with sorrow/ and the farmer who was seeding, paused mid-row (Click image to read more)
POEM: The Great Cry (Parashat Vayigash) Read More »