Category: Spirituality

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.

Rabbi's Corner – June 2025: Shavuot, Loving Together at Sinai

5/25/2025

Happy June, which this year also means Happy Shavuot!

Rabbi David offers coming attractions about the Shavuot festival of love this weekend, and some personal thoughts about what this festival means to him amidst family challenges.

Who Counts (P. Bamidbar)

5/25/2025

The fourth book of Torah (Numbers) opens with our desert-wandering ancestors starting their 14th month walking free from Egypt. They begin by taking a census of the Children of Israel, of each separate tribe, and of subsets of the Tribe of Levi dedicated to sacred service. Thousands of years later, Auschwitz survivors bore numbered tattoos on their forearms, a gruesome testament to the horror of treating people as ledger entries.

What does it mean to "count" in Jewish life?

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 Gear Shifts (P. Emor)

5/11/2025

As spiritual beings, we can understand life as a constant choice between inertia and change, letting things ride or deliberately altering them. We don't pay attention, or we do. We accept what is, or we try to act.

So it is with most things Jewish, especially Jewish time – a series of holy gear shifts throughout life.

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.

Reclaiming the Spirituality of Food & Omer Week 3 (P. Shemini)

4/20/2025

A special teaching for Earth Week.

Emerging from Passover, whose most outward manifestation is foods we eat and don't eat, maybe it's inevitable that the "food" part of this week's Torah portion stands out. "Kosher" and "not kosher" categories emerge from Torah's traditional list of what one does and doesn't eat.
Turns out, though, that the spirituality of food is far deeper than whether we eat shellfish or pork.

The real question is whether we can reclaim the spirituality of food – for ourselves, for core values, and for our planet.

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.

<<Previous

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

The Bitterness of Judgment (P. Nasso)

Rabbi's Corner – June 2025: Shavuot, Loving Together at Sinai

Who Counts (P. Bamidbar)

Hunger Games (P. Behar-Behukotai)

Holy Gear Shifts (P. Emor)

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

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

Reclaiming the Spirituality of Food & Omer Week 3 (P. Shemini)

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

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