I come from a long line of refugees. From Adam and Eve cast out of Eden to the exodus from Egypt and forty years’ wandering in the wilderness, the story of the Jews turns on exile and the yearning for refuge. My own maternal grandparents left Russia under cover of night to escape the pogroms …
In The Golden Notebook, her masterpiece of disillusionment, Doris Lessing wrote about the dream of a fellow stalwart of the British Communist Party. The book was published half a dozen years after Nikita Khrushchev’s revelations to the 20th party congress in 1956 of Stalin’s terrible crimes. In the party worker’s fantasy, he goes to Russia, …
The full extent of damage to lives and property on the Gulf Coast is unknown, but experts are expressing certainty that in terms of what it will take to repair a significant part of the damage, it is the worst such disaster to afflict the United States. The scenes of people mourning their homes and …
I hate TV commercials, so when I want to watch a program, I usually tape it so as to fast-forward through the ads. Consequently, I’m a little behind in my viewing. There’s a tall stack of gray videotapes by the VCR, each with its little cache of programs I mean to watch as soon as …
When I woke up this morning, my head was swimming with scenes from the news my overworked brain hadn’t been able to process, even with a good night’s sleep: Cindy Sheehan encamped outside President Bush’s ranch, young soldiers in Gaza weeping as they pried desolate families from their homes. If I set out to script …
As I wrote in my last essay, at the end of July I attended a large spiritual retreat, the ALEPH Kallah, where I studied with two wonderful teachers. Today, my hope is convey a few of the insights I gained from Rabbi David A. Cooper, whose class in “Kabbalah, Zen and Dzogchen: Interweaving Contemplative Paths” …
Tonight, the Hebrew calendar marks the beginning of Shavuot, a holiday that has its roots in ancient offerings from the barley harvest, and has come to mark the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai: the holiday of revelation. Like every milestone in the liturgical calendar, Shavuot invites us to examine our own lives and …
In my last blog, I wrote about spiritual preparation for the Passover holiday, how the deep metaphor of purging our diets of chametz — leavening — also relates to locating and clearing out whatever puffs up our egos or clogs our ability to remain present and compassionate. The other wonderful metaphor of the holiday has …
A week ago, I posted an essay about feeling deeply discouraged. My purpose was to whistle in the dark: I thought if I said out loud that I intended to persevere despite discouragement (or as I put it, to “proceed without the insulation of hope, the armor of faith in my own judgment”), I’d be …
I’m part of a discussion elist for progressive Jews, and like a zillion other online groups, we’ve been posting messages about the Terry Schiavo case (may she rest in peace). Over the weeks of its unfolding, people have sent eloquent expositions of their own widely divergent views to the list, from those who feel the …