Today is the 6th day of the 7 days of the 6th week of the 7 weeks of the Omer. And here we are in the 6th year of the 7-year shmitah cycle. What does it mean to be in the 6, anticipating the 7?
Read moreMt. Meron, Zohar, and Us
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai died and was buried on Mt. Meron, having instructed his disciples to visit his grave and celebrate his memory annually. Which is what was happening yesterday, because the number of his disciples has grown, no longer ten, but tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and includes all of those people who were there, just as it includes us as well.
Read moreWhere You Go, I Will Go: Same-Sex Marriage & Jewish Law
A workshop exploring the state of same-sex marriage in current Jewish thought and practice.
Read moreShechinah, at the Art Institute (Encore)
I ran into the Shechinah in an art museum. It was the Art Institute of Chicago. Maybe not the way it is now, but the way it was when I was a kid. She was in one of the Impressionist rooms. In front of Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of la Grande Jatte.
Read moreTo Be Impervious
“Nadab and Abihu consumed by Fire from the Lord", engraving published in 1728, by Gerard Hoet (public domain)
Oh to be so impervious! To hold the weight of the hardship of the people and for it not to absorb through our skin and into our bones! But no, we are so porous. N’kavim n’kavim chalulim chalulim as we say in our morning prayers. We are porous and penetrable! We were made that way.
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