Category: Character

What the Light is For (P. Beha'alotekha)

6/8/2025

As many of you have heard, my mom has been in the hospital for a month, and therefore so have I. As many of us know from personal experience, hospitals are full of lights – colored door lights, blinking lights, flashing lights, beeping lights, and also lights of deep and abiding care.

It's a heck of a time and place to revisit one of Judaism's abiding symbols, the Menorah, its purpose to give light, and its link to healing.

The Bitterness of Judgment (P. Nasso)

6/1/2025

To accuse another is a big deal spiritually, and we all do it more than we realize. Even when we do not express a negative judgment, harboring one alters one's energetics. Leveling the accusation aloud can be more "honest," and also more impactful on the relationship.

This week's Torah portion goes there in the most intimate and impactful of ways.

Hunger Games (P. Behar-Behukotai)

5/16/2025

Our agricultural ancestors knew much that we do not. They knew in their bones that life depends on nature's balance and on our mutual dependence.

And they understood, better than us moderns, that physical life and spiritual life are profoundly intertwined.

We'd do well to learn the secrets they knew.

Holy is as Holy Does (P. Aharei Mot-Kedoshim)

5/4/2025

Jewish life uses the word "holy" so often that the word can seem like punctuation – ubiquitous but peripheral, faded from view, nearly empty of the word's deep meaning.

This week's Torah portion reminds us that "holy" is more than a word or even important. "Holy" is the center, the whole point of the whole thing.

Which begs the question: what is holy anyway?

The Thing We Say, After We Say the Thing (P. Tazria-Metzora)

4/27/2025

We humans tend to talk... and talk... and talk. As social creatures reared for community, what we say and how we say it are part of our social bond and social currency.

And being the social creatures we are, often we speak about others – maybe more than we know.

For our spiritual ancestors, speaking of others wasn't mere idle chatter. Back then, no chatter was unimportant or inconsequential – especially if we spoke of others.

The stakes were high. They still are.

All Together, Then and Now – and Omer Week 2 (Passover)

4/14/2025

We say that each of us was there. In ancestral ways that defy the mind, every soul spark that ever was experienced the miracle of the Sea splitting to reveal our freedom path forward. The moment was so awesome that we all became like prophets. We still carry that vision.

Passover's seventh day is the anniversary of that awesome day. Honoring that we all were there, we bring in our departed ancestors for Yizkor.

A "Small" Teaching on Humility for the Chosen (P. Vayikra)

3/31/2025

Open any Torah and you'll see in the first word of Leviticus a letter written in tiny superscript.

It teaches us about what healthy humility is really all about.

Unbend the Knee (P. Ki Tisa)

3/9/2025

I rarely engage with artificial intelligence, but recently I asked ChatGPT to depict the "Golden Calf of modern society." This image was ChatGPT's response.

For Persia in the Purim story we commemorate this week, the Golden Calf was Haman, the xenophobic prime minister. For our spiritual ancestors in Exodus days, it was literally a Golden Calf – a repudiation of the Ten Commandments.

This week's confluence of the two has much to teach us.

Giving, Up (P. Terumah)

2/23/2025

In liberal Jewish life, mitzvah often is translated as "good deed" and tzedakah as "charity." To English speakers, both sound optional.

In Jewish life, however, they're not optional. They are mandatory and essential to Jewish continuity and resilience. The whole point is to rise, and lift others as we do, and together raise up the holy.

Come to Narcissist (P. Bo)

1/26/2025

We all have emotional and psychological vested interests in seeming externally to be our best selves. Most of us, we hope, respond to these impulses by actually trying to be our best selves in the world. Our insides aspire to match our outsides.

For others, the optics of manipulated perception are the primary reality or even only reality they recognize or allow others to see.

The effects on communities and society can be brutal, and we must stand up to them.

<<Previous

What the Light is For (P. Beha'alotekha)

The Bitterness of Judgment (P. Nasso)

Hunger Games (P. Behar-Behukotai)

Holy is as Holy Does (P. Aharei Mot-Kedoshim)

The Thing We Say, After We Say the Thing (P. Tazria-Metzora)

All Together, Then and Now – and Omer Week 2 (Passover)

A "Small" Teaching on Humility for the Chosen (P. Vayikra)

Unbend the Knee (P. Ki Tisa)

Giving, Up (P. Terumah)

Come to Narcissist (P. Bo)

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