Bring The Sacred Down To Earth, Compassion and Empathy, Longform, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized |
December 22, 2021
Here We Go Again?
I breathe slowly to calm my mind, I am breathing the air of March 2020. The doors feel like they’re closing once more....
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Another Way Of Looking At Things, Bring The Sacred Down To Earth, Compassion and Empathy, Longform, Relationships & Family, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized |
December 15, 2021
Everything I need to know about dying with dignity I learned from a houseplant
Life lessons from a dying plant...
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The other night, my wife and I were watching TV when a Christmas ad came up, telling people about “holiday specials.” “But our holiday is over!” I somewhat snarkily said. Christmas simply dominates the American landscape, and I still can’t decide if I prefer whether someone accidentally wishes me “Merry Christmas” (implying it’s something I celebrate) or “Happy Holidays” (which is both bland and eliminates Christians’ religious connection to the holiday, even as the color schemes are all red and green). Even if you’re deeply secure in your Jewish identity, Christmastime reminds......
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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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Compassion and Empathy, Grief & Coping, Longform, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized |
November 19, 2021
The Great Forgiving
This week’s Torah portion always gets me in the gut. It’s the story of Jacob returning to his long-estranged brother Esau, from whom he fled 20 years beforehand after betraying Esau by stealing his birthright and blessing. Now, so much time has passed, Jacob doesn’t even know Esau anymore. We can tell this because Jacob takes great pains to send gifts ahead, to prepare for Esau’s wrath but hope for his forgiveness, to plan for any eventual outcome. Jacob can’t anticipate Esau’s reaction. Despite Jacob’s worry that Esau’s still violently mad about......
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Bring The Sacred Down To Earth, Compassion and Empathy, Inspiring Story, Longform, Uncategorized |
November 11, 2021
And I Did Not Know…
“I GOT ONE!” With the recent announcement by the CDC that the Pfizer vaccine has been approved for children ages 5-11, my wife Lizzie scrambled to find available appointments for our two oldest children. She refreshed the browser each time the search came up empty, going through the painstaking process of inputting their information multiple times until – finally – she landed appointments for both of them. I can’t quite explain how cathartic it felt to see the confirmation screen with their names on it, to know that we would soon reach......
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Inspiring Story, Longform, Relationships & Family, Uncategorized |
November 05, 2021
Esau and Zero-Sum Thinking
The first question most of us ask about elections is, “Who won?” Whether it’s for President or Town Clerk, Senator or Mayor, Congressperson or School Board member, we often have a preferred candidate going in, and feel either excited or disappointed, depending on the result. In short, we view elections as a zero-sum game: there’s a winner, and there’s a loser, and that’s it. But elections are not the same as politics — in the words of former Governor Mario Cuomo, politicians campaign in poetry, but govern in prose. The goal of......
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Bring The Sacred Down To Earth, Inspiring Story, Longform |
October 27, 2021
Abraham’s Conflicted Love
We live in an era of punditry. Everyone has an interpretation of events, yet few of us stop to understand what actually might have happened. Interpretation occludes understanding, as tenuously grand conclusions occlude more modest insights that are built upon a firmer footing. Similar critique might be applied to how many of us approach the founder of the Jewish people, Abraham. To venerate the origins of Judaism itself, we conclude at the outset that he was a moral superhero – all the while deemphasizing a personal life riddled with painful complexity. We......
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The Covenant between God and Noah, as a representative of humanity, is often seen as a beacon of hope and a universal connection between the Divine and human beings. After the great flood, which destroyed most life, God rebuilds with the promise never to destroy the earth through a great flood again. Genesis 9:13-15, God solemnizes the promise: I have set My bow in the clouds, and it shall serve as a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears......
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