Another Way Of Looking At Things, Compassion and Empathy, Longform, Longform, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized |
January 07, 2022
The Plague of Uncertainty
Throughout Moses’ showdown with Pharaoh, there is one overarching, emotional plague that God wreaks upon the Egyptians: uncertainty. They do not know when the litany of discomforts, outrages, upsets, frustrations, pains, and fears will end. We gain insight into the Egyptian mindset just after Moses pronounces that God will bring locusts to eat whatever remains of the crops after the hail. Moses departs Pharaoh’s court and then we read (Exodus 10:7): “Pharaoh’s courtiers said to him, ‘How long shall this one be a snare to us? Let the people go to worship......
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Hold Dualities Together, Longform, Longform, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized |
December 03, 2021
Have We Stopped Dreaming?
In times of prolonged pain, be it emotional or physical, our world constricts and perspectives contract. We focus on the moment-to-moment or the day-to-day. Right now, this describes many of us. The waves of pandemic (and waves of variants) evoke waves of trauma that we have yet to process. We have long since put aside aspirations of self-actualization and seek merely to preserve aspects of ourselves from two years ago. Uncertainty of the future is itself a source of pain, and we have stopped dreaming about what it might hold – or......
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Bring The Sacred Down To Earth, Compassion and Empathy, Hold Dualities Together, Longform, Longform, Mundane Into Sacred, There's More To You Than You Realize, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized, Wisdom Daily News |
November 24, 2021
What does it mean to have enough?
Do you really have nothing?...
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Book Club, Historic Profiles, Interviews With Wise People Of Today, Longform, Longform, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized |
November 23, 2021
Inviting Kids To Make History By Reading About Hanukkah: A conversation with Emily Singer, author of Gilgul
Emily Singer is the author of a new book — one receiving good attention in many quarters, including a warm review in a recent edition of the Jerusalem Post. The book is called Gilgul, and while it’s intended for middle-school-age readers, and would make a great Hanukkah gift for same, it carries a message we could all use — one combining great pride in ethnic/national/religious identity and genuinely embracing the idea that each particularity must connect with something larger than itself. I had the opportunity to “sit down” with Emily, despite the......
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Breaking False Dichotomies, Compassion and Empathy, Grief & Coping, Longform, Longform, News & Politics, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized |
September 13, 2021
When Grief Turns to Rage – Shabbat Shuvah and 9/11
Leadership also involves compassion for others...
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Breaking False Dichotomies, Bring The Sacred Down To Earth, Compassion and Empathy, Hold Dualities Together, Longform, Longform, News & Politics, Spirituality & Faith, Uncategorized |
July 15, 2021
Bully Pulpits and Pulpit Bullies
When President Teddy Roosevelt coined the term “Bully Pulpit,” the term “bully” meant “outstanding” or “optimal,” not a pulpit from which one could use their office to bully their audience. New data from Pew Research indicates that a rather high percentage of American Christian religious leaders could take a lesson from the former president when it comes to how they use their own pulpits when addressing political issues. Pastors Often Discussed Election, Pandemic and Racism in Fall of 2020 The polling results, based on the content of sermons offered from the pulpits......
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Another Way Of Looking At Things, Breaking False Dichotomies, Bring The Sacred Down To Earth, Compassion and Empathy, Inspiring Story, Longform, Longform, Spirituality & Faith, Uncategorized |
July 09, 2021
Leadership Lessons and Serving the Servers in The Holy Land
Also by Rabbi Joshua Stanton You are standing in Bethlehem’s Manger Square, the Church of the Nativity looms before you, and you feel like the kid in the Disneyland commercial who says, “I’ve been waiting my whole life to see you.” You are a Christian leader standing in the Western Wall Plaza and discover that you now understand more fully how and why so many Jews attach so deeply to this one spot in particular and to Israel in general, even as you also discover that you, as a Christian, may still feel......
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Bring The Sacred Down To Earth, Compassion and Empathy, Longform, Longform, Science & Technology, Uncategorized, Wisdom Warehouse |
July 08, 2021
Where Were You When…?
Negative memories change over time......
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Bring The Sacred Down To Earth, Historic Profiles, Inspiring Story, Longform, Longform, Spirituality & Faith, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized |
June 30, 2021
Tears on the Digital Road to Jerusalem
“If a picture paints a thousand words, then an experience paints 10,000.” “Stand where He stood. Walk where He walked. Discover it for yourself.” When we bring rising Christian leaders on pilgrimage to Israel, we emphasize that there is nothing like seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling the complicated, beautiful, Holy Land that birthed their tradition and ours. Born out of necessity amid the pandemic, we began to experiment with digital pilgrimages to see if they could feel every bit as real as those that happened in person. We knew from the......
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Bring The Sacred Down To Earth, Longform, Longform, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized |
June 17, 2021
Passing the Mantle
Torah is endless. We conclude our reading of Deuteronomy and begin anew with Genesis in the same breath each Simchat Torah. It is continuous, a blueprint for the world that unfolds before us. By contrast, the humans spoken of in the Torah are temporal beings, whose ends are sometimes of greater significance than their beginnings. In this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Chukat (Numbers 19:1 – 22:1), we read of the death of the original High Priest, Aaron. We know far more about it than we do of his birth, or even of......
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