Blog Archives

The Mischief of Faction (P. Korah)

6/30/2024

How people navigate dispute often says more about them than whatever the dispute might be. The stakes, the context and especially one's own perceived rightness can cause good people to forget the better angels of their nature.

As this week's Torah portion teaches, no one and nowhere is immune – even spiritual community.

What Not to Fear (P. Shlakh Lekha)

6/23/2024

– Sketch credit: Steve Silbert (Bayit)

"Mirror, mirror on the wall."

As the Snow White fable put it, sometimes we want to see ourselves a certain way – for good or for ill – and we project that impression on others.

Except nobody is their image, and nobody goes forward in life that way. That's the ticket to going backward. It's exactly why our spiritual ancestors wandered the desert for 40 years rather than enter the Land of Promise.

Mirrors, it turn out, can be profoundly deceiving.

Healing Impulses and Arrow Prayers (P. Beha'alotekha)

6/15/2024

Once upon a time, long before Jews were called a "People of the Book" seeking guidance and instruction in a vast sea of sacred text, spiritual life had no printed instructions.

Long before pathways of spiritual practice became carved in bedrock, people lived spiritually – letting themselves feel spiritual impulses moment by moment and naturally responding from their hearts and souls.

Long before there existed siddurim (prayer books) chock full of approved words of liturgy for personal and collective prayer, people prayed spontaneously, unconcerned if their words were "correct" by someone else's standards.

And fittingly, Torah's first recorded prayer was for healing.

"And I Will Bless Them" (P. Nasso)

6/10/2024

We use the word "blessing" routinely, but the experience we call a blessing is far from routine. Blessings don't come from nowhere, and don't happen by themselves. This week's Torah portion includes the Threefold Blessing, a Judeo-Christian cornerstone of liturgy so familiar that we might intone its words unthinkingly. But just under the surface of these words is radical stuff – as radical and revolutionary as a blessing itself.

Omer Week 7 – Presence: Awareness and Sovereignty

6/3/2024

The Omer journey that began at Passover (liberation) leads through this seventh and final week to Shavuot (revelation).

Along the way, we delved into inner capacities and character traits, aligned with the mystical (kabbalistic) sequence borne of the medieval era. Week by week, we've made our way through
love (hesed), strength (gevurah), balance (tiferet), resilience (netzah), splendor (hod) and
foundation (yesod).

It all funnels into this week: presence (malkhut), bringing our full selves into the world so that we can receive Torah anew with our full selves.

About Our Shavuot Together – June 11 and June 12, 2024

6/2/2024

Shavuot at Shir Ami will be sweet and high, deep and meaningful, fun and provocative, cheesecakey and perhaps a bit seductive.

How can one Jewish holiday be all of that, while hiding in plain sight? Here's a nuts and bolts of what we'll do together this Shavuot on June 11 (erev Shavuot) and June 12 (culmination and Yizkor).

Rabbi's Corner: June 2024 – Peak Light

6/2/2024

We approach the peak light of Shavuot and Mount Sinai, and also the peak light of the solar zenith in the Northern Hemisphere sky.

This confluence of two peak lights has me thinking about what peak experiences are, why we need them and why we sometimes push them away, and how we can open ourselves anew to inviting them as this summer season of light approaches.

How to Receive Torah (P. Bamidbar)

6/2/2024

The approach of Shavuot, our festival of receiving Torah anew, cues us to ask what it means to receive Torah at all, much less anew. How does one receive Torah anyway. And whether or not Torah was given at Sinai thousands of years ago, how to we receive anew what we already got... or are we to receive something else?

These are no idle or mere academic questions. They go to the heart of who we are, and how we walk in the world. Put another way, they go to the heart – full stop.

The Mischief of Faction (P. Korah)

What Not to Fear (P. Shlakh Lekha)

Healing Impulses and Arrow Prayers (P. Beha'alotekha)

"And I Will Bless Them" (P. Nasso)

Omer Week 7 – Presence: Awareness and Sovereignty

About Our Shavuot Together – June 11 and June 12, 2024

Rabbi's Corner: June 2024 – Peak Light

How to Receive Torah (P. Bamidbar)

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