We don't always say yes to what Shabbat offers. Maybe we say no more often than we say yes. But she never gets the hint. And she never gives up on us. She keeps showing up at the door in all her beauty, the Shechinah robed in time, with the fierceness of lions and the voice of songbirds. And so it is also after a week like this one. A horrible, unthinkable week, here she is again. Despite it all.
Read morePep Talk: Do Not Be Afraid
They say that in a moment of great unsettling, the Holy One issues forth two angels – one on the right and one on the left, to hold the disconcerted person by the elbows and keep them from falling. In other words, the al tirá is not an instruction but a conjuring of Divine support. The moment of al tirá
Read moreThe End of the Beginning
In a gasp like a baby's first shocked breath, She pulled back the diaphragm of the Divine, creating space for a Universe to expand to fill the Divine lungs. In seven days it was done - chay, tzomeach, domem - animal, vegetable, mineral - things, creatures beyond count, an explosion of interaction and unfolding physics. She felt awe and satisfaction and, at last, curiosity.
Read moreThe Journey of Return
Standing on that hilltop in Waibstadt, Germany, I have to say that I indeed felt like I was returning, even though I had never been there. This great-great-grandfather whose grave I stood at shared his name with me – as I discovered he did with his own grandfather, and with his grandson, my Grandpa Irwin, whose birthday is tomorrow. This succession of Yitzchak Kellers made me feel a little bit like a cat with if not nine lives then at least four. Yes, his life was a blank slate to me but, oddly, chillingly, a slate with my name on it.
Read moreInto the Unknown
In fifteen minutes, or for some of us less, we left it all behind. For the sake of life, for the sake of survival, we left it all behind. Most of us, but not all of us, were able to go back to our smoke-steeped houses in a week or ten days. But on that first night it was the same for all of us: we didn't know if we would have a home to go home to. On that first night, we experienced letting go and leaving behind. With lech lecha in our ears, we grabbed those few things, threw them in the car, and hit the gas pedal into the Unknown.
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