As I'm sitting here at home on this lovely rainy, September day, sick with who knows what, I'm grateful for this bit of quiet in my recently much noisy life, a life which keeps me from this, what I love most. It reminds me what this season is all about, of preparing one's soul for the coming New Year on Rosh Hashanah as we enter the courts of our King and ask Him to pardon us from all sins, iniquities, and unrighteousness from the past year. How? I have books to write reviews for, ...
Judaism
Respect My Time
I’ve had a startling epiphany. Last night, I was in a meeting which was supposed to last at the most one hour. It lasted three. At about two hours into the meeting, I shut down. Emotionally. I couldn’t allow myself to indulge the rage and indignation I felt rising, swelling within me. Sure, I managed to engage conceptually for the remainder of the meeting, but the longer it elapsed, the less I presented and the more I retracted into myself. Afterwards, as I retrospectively sifted ...
The Megaphone of Pain
A few weeks ago, I wrote about being more confident, about my journey of learning to stand up for myself; of removing my masks to be wholly accepted as who I am, not what others perceive me to be. The irony is since then, I have felt my words, my convictions tested, pushed to their limits in an incubator of trial. It’s as if some force is questioning me, saying, “Oh, really? You’re growing confident now? Let’s see about that.” And BAM! The crap hit the proverbial fan. I experienced extreme ...
Israel: 70 Years of Beauty
As my rabbi loves to quip, “What a long month this week has been.” My week can be summoned up in two words: Oy. Vey. I’ll just skip my usual digression and say Life has been unusually busy recently. (Though, I feel like it’s been this way since January…?) Regardless, I’m finding myself inspired today. Yes, Life has been rough, painful, stressful – you name it. And intense? Did I mention intense? However, it’s all been worth it. It always is. I think a perfect example of this is ...
Passover Failure
I never know how to start these blog posts. It always feels so pedantic. So we’re in the middle of Pesach; Passover as it’s more commonly known. This time of year is not merely to remember and reflect on the life of Moses and the Exodus from Egypt. As usual, it permeates far deeper than memory in our psyches, or neshama. As we say during Seder, we must feel as though we endured the bitterness of Egypt ourselves and are leaving our slavery and sorrows behind to begin a new life of ...
