The Torah teaches, “Choose life…” Choose life. Choose blessing. Choose laughter. Choose openness to change. Choose fearlessness. Choose spaciousness. Choose loving-kindness. Choose walking. Choose dancing. Choose listening. Choose quieting. Choose responding. Choose awakening. Choose seeing. Choose breathing. Choose compassion. Choose community. Choose learning. Choose honesty. Choose equanimity. Choose love. Choose life.
Torah
Enough, enough, and enough: Parhsat Korach
The 16th chapter of the Book of Numbers tells the story of Korach. It’s typically taught as a story of rebellion. A faction of Israelites, led by Korach, challenges the authority of Moses and Aaron. Moses accepts the challenge and the following morning, in an act of Divine dispute resolution, the ground opens up […]
Thank God for the Psalms
There are 150 Psalms in the Hebrew Bible. And I thank God for the psalms on what feels like a daily basis. Why? Because I am so glad that the faith tradition that I practice, teach, and represent has poetry at the heart of its sacred scripture. While reading this post here’s a song […]
Can anywhere be a holy place?
Check out this song of mine called “Jacob’s Journey” while you read this post. It’ll connect by paragraph 6: Awhile back I wrote about why I find such meaning in creating contexts that help others find and share their voices. The other day I found myself leafing through some reflective journaling prompts I used […]
The little aleph
The book of Leviticus, in Hebrew Vayikra begins, as you might imagine, with the word: Vayikra. “God called to Moses…” You’ll notice in the picture above that the final letter of Vayikra, the aleph is written smaller than all the other letters. In noticing this you’ll join every Jew, bible scholar, and person that has ever studied the Hebrew Bible. […]
Altars and Altars
This week’s Torah portion, Vayakhel (Exodus 35:1-38:20) and Haftarah (II Kings 11:17-12:17) present an interesting contrast that has to do with altars. Basically, there are some altars that we should build and some that we should tear down. On the one hand, altars are complicated. They’re built a specific way, serve multiple purposes, and at […]