The Kedoshim Question: Aural Argument

Rabbi Hillel had been in happy retirement since his death, spending slow days playing Scrabble with Rabbi Shammai, who always complained that Hillel was making up words; Hillel insisted that if he had a plausible definition, especially a humorous one, his words should count. But now Hillel had been persuaded out of retirement in order to argue this most unusual case. He stood at the bench and beamed, despite his slightly disheveled appearance, compounded by matzah crumbs from the sandwich he'd snuck into the chamber in his pocket.

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Ki Tisa: Improvisation and Practice

“No pain, no gain,” says the Baal Shem Tov. When someone has attained their enlightenment through yegi’ah, or long, hard labor, their insights deserve to be believed. Just as we’d believe the insights of a longtime practicing Buddhist over an enthusiast just back from their first Vipassana retreat. Because we know the longtime practitioner has gone and meditated over years of cold mornings when she would have preferred to stay in bed. When she says this is worthwhile, it carries weight.

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Yom Kippur: Getting To It

I was on my way to Ner Shalom’s annual Havdalah with the Horses. I was dressed in my finest faux cowboy gear – boots, jeans, Stetson. I had my guitar in the back seat and I was practicing talking like Chuck Connors in the Rifleman. As I turned onto East Cotati I saw the CHP car sitting on the shoulder and, as I always feel when I see a police car, I thought, “I’m going to get caught.” I think that instinctively, even though I’ve usually not done anything illegal.

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Releasing Our Angels (Thinking About Steve Norwick)

There is teaching in Judaism that every mitzvah you engage in - that is, every commandment or perhaps every act of justice or kindness - creates an angel. Is this meant literally or metaphorically? In the mystical mind that distinction is not a clear one; we exist in physical and metaphysical worlds all at once. But whether this belief is literal doesn't really matter; the result is the same.

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