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The Neck's Cure is the Heart (P. Eikev)

8/18/2024

Week by precious week, we're shown how we strayed from our best selves. Slowly at first, this season hints, asks, presses, cajoles, demands and then forces us to see some things that maybe we labor mightily not to see. We turn away, perhaps with the whole of our lives or just a part. Or we turn away from truths about ourselves.

In Torah's words, we become "stiff necked." This season's call to turn back means that we must our neck, and this turn begins... on our hearts.

What's Love Got to Do With It? (P. Vaethanan)

8/11/2024

Jewish life centers on love – not like, honor or respect, but love. Love is the core of our creed (V'ahavta), Torah's literal center ("Love your neighbor as yourself"), and the most repeated admonition in sacred Jewish text ("love the stranger, for you were a stranger").

But how can love be commanded? How can any true love be required, especially if the world feels unlovely to us? What kind of love is that?

Turns out, this kind of love is most important of all.

Our Choice Not to Fear? (P. Devarim)

8/4/2024

Fear doesn't seem like an emotion we choose. Whether we experience fear as an overpowering wave, a dull ache in the gut or something else, we rarely go looking for fear. Even so, especially so, our existential choice in this season, especially this year, is whether we will choose to allow fear to inhibit us. Our answer matters utterly now.

Rabbi's Corner – August 2024: For the Sake of Ascent

8/1/2024

Our long, luxurious summer continues, yet already change is afoot. This month brings the Great Turning of Judaism's spiritual year. It's something that maybe many of us never knew in our Jewish lives. The Great Turning runs like a background program – just under the surface, animating the flow of spiritual time. It heralds hope from despair and resilience from the bottom of a well ...

... which is exactly what we need right now.

Vows in a World Unhinged... and a World Redeemed (P. Matot-Masei)

7/28/2024

The High Holy Days – the Season of Meaning, the timeless Jewish call to repentance and repair. Rosh Hashanah and especially Yom Kippur always come too soon: we're never quite ready. We might even spend the summer in denial.

What came of last year's vows – the promises we made to ourselves and each other, our commitment that this time we'd be different? Inner walls have a way of regrowing and old habits die hard. Naturally we develop amnesia ...

... that is, until something reminds us.

How "Women's Lib" Began (P. Pinhas)

7/21/2024

Judaism is all about collective transformation. The Jewish narrative continually has "transformed" its "collective" from a first human eventually to all humans. At the same time, the Jewish narrative continually has "transformed" roles and rights within the "collective," in fits and starts striving for dignity and equality for all.

At its best, Judaism's social justice ethic does both at the same time – which is how "women's lib" began.

The Sacred "No" and the "Devil" We Know (P. Balak)

7/14/2024

"Balaam and the Angel" (Jaeger, 1836)

We yearn for "yes" – a benevolent Power that answers prayers, cures the ill, heals the world and satisfies wants.

Countless many have lost faith (and sometimes found it again) after encountering a spiritual "no" when they yearned for "yes." It takes courage, maturity and wisdom to be in relationship with a "God of no" – which, it turns out, flips a key Western belief image on its head.

Our Sacred Cows (P. Hukat)

7/7/2024

Amidst spirituality's search for certainty, we can come to believe that some truths, perspectives, practices, methods and systems can't be questioned and can't be changed. In a sense, we turn them into sacred cows.

But Torah teaches that there are no sacred cows. And in Torah's "Jedi"-like way, she does so using... a sacred cow.

Rabbi's Corner – July 2024: Spirituality on the Slow

7/1/2024

When I began with Shir Ami one year ago, the "early" High Holy Days were fast approaching. Our first months together sometimes felt like launching off an aircraft carrier.

This year, we get a real summer. Rosh Hashanah won't be until October. This summer, we get to take it slow. What's spirituality on the slow?

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.

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The Neck's Cure is the Heart (P. Eikev)

What's Love Got to Do With It? (P. Vaethanan)

Our Choice Not to Fear? (P. Devarim)

Rabbi's Corner – August 2024: For the Sake of Ascent

Vows in a World Unhinged... and a World Redeemed (P. Matot-Masei)

How "Women's Lib" Began (P. Pinhas)

The Sacred "No" and the "Devil" We Know (P. Balak)

Our Sacred Cows (P. Hukat)

Rabbi's Corner – July 2024: Spirituality on the Slow

The Mischief of Faction (P. Korah)

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