a.k.a rabbi

The Talmud weaves an intriguing tale of about our time in the womb, as we gaze from one end of the world to the other and learn the Torah from an angel. And then, we are born, and it is gone. But we take a vow to seek it...

Everyone knows they will ultimately die, but do people live their lives as if they will one day leave this world? How would you know if they did? You'd see a sense of urgency and drive.

Pesach is a holiday of immense light and clarity... that we did not earn. Thus it is followed by a period in which we build vessels too hold the light we've already been given. This is the counting of the Omer.

The absolutely necessary but often quite arduous and occasionally demoralizing task of rebuilding broken vessels requires that we acknowledge and traverse shame

Digging deeper into the original myth of the shattering of the vessels. Here we find reckless ambition and lack of self-awareness resulting in pain that takes eons to repair.

Using Rebbe Nachman's 49th lesson we'll discuss the parallels between God's creation of the world and the work we do within that world. Just as God "had to" perform an act of tzimztum - of self-limitation and constriction, so, too, we have to perform an act of tzimtzum in order to make beautiful things happen in the world

In this series we will be exploring some of the great texts that deal with the very, very essential tension and dance between lights - vigor, intensity, creativity, vigor - and vessels - capacity, skill, tools, resources. Light without vessels is inaccessible and destructive. Vessels without light are stultifying and dull. In this first installment, Rav Kook's essay describes the great dreamers who came to Israel in the early 20th century with their big lights... and insufficient vessels with which to hold those lights.

The deaf beggar tells the garden-country how to do the work - so they get to work. It's hard work - sorting out, differentiating between what's real and what's noise. But they're ready.

The deaf beggar goes to investigate "that country" and discovers that their good life has been covered over with corruption, and once it's removed they can access the good life that is already within reach

Now the deaf beggar will show us how the "good life" works - and how it can so easily be taken away from us. But it's always nearby, and we can regain access with some help from great teachers

The deaf beggar has claimed that all the sounds in the world come from lack, and this reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the world and what is happening within it. He, however, lives an actual good life, and he is ready to prove it.

A new, short series built on the courageous deaf beggar who is willing to not listen to the noise so that he can hear what actually matters.

RMK understands that human nature limits the capacity to forgive another. But who says we should be limited by human nature?

Really, this is a series on compassion and mercy - rachamim - and not on forgiveness. Forgiveness is one of the tools we use to keep the space open so connection can be maintained and change can happen.

The muscle that controls forgiveness is directly related to our ability to tolerate - specifically to be insulted or offended and to not respond.

RaMaK's book Palm Tree of Devorah challenges us to imitate God at a very high level, all the way to keter, all the way to forgiveness. We do this work preparing for Elul - in hopes of being forgiven, we learn to forgive.

The very unity - the "one heart" - with which the Israelites received the Torah becomes the basis for a never-ending unity, which includes responsibility and accountability.

Amidst many commentaries on the Torah verse describing rebuke, there are some that point toward being pissed off at them as enough of a reason, and some that seem to require a more principled reason in order to engage the process of rebuke. So which is it?

Rav Kook points out that you should know your own motives before you jump into a rebuke. You might discover that it is not at all borne of love.

Just as it is a mitzvah to rebuke someone who will listen, it is a mitzvah to NOT rebuke someone who will NOT listen. But don't be so fast to decide that the person won't listen...

The halacha is pretty straightforward: everyone is obligated to rebuke anyone who does something wrong. But alongside the halacha we find very early sources from very big rabbis saying that even in their generation it would be amazing if there is anyone who is qualified to rebuke, or is able to receive rebuke, or knows how to rebuke. So, we're obligated, but duly warned.

How dare we tell anyone what they should be doing? How dare we criticize anyone else's actions? Well, why exactly shouldn't we? Because we have been told and trained to assume that values are personal and based upon personal choice. But the Torah has a different perspective. And rebuke is not only OK, it's a mitzvah.

The Talmud sees teachers and parents as quite similar. Teachers "build" people the way parents do. Rebbe Nachman strongly encourages us to do what we can to share our da'at - our consciousness - with people who can receive it.

CAVEAT: This is not meant to be a psak or rabbinic ruling. There are opinions that a last will and testament must be followed, and there are opinions that they do not. Though it is halachically complicated, particularly concerning money, it is psychologically interesting to consider that sometimes a last will could perpetuate patterns that lead to discord, and therefore should be approached carefully.

The mitzvah to honor parents continues after they have passed from this world. In general, we attempt to contribute to the honor of their good name by doing positive and holy things with their memories in mind. And we also offer to help hold their burden of their after-death work...

With people in the 1st world living into their eighties, and with people moving away from their parents much earlier in life, final decisions about caring for elderly and infirm parents - particularly those with dementia - are complexified by halachic regulations.

The question is difficult to address, not because there is any lack of Torah sources on it, but because it mixes love and family and money, and that mixture gets sticky. And that's why it's important for the Torah to offer guidance on it.

Rabbi Tarfon went pretty far in honoring his mother. The stories about his practices are amazing - and almost entirely beyond reach for most of us. Average people struggle to check all - or even most - of the boxes of honoring and revering parents. How should we view that?

The girl in the commercial intentionally embarrasses her mother in public by interrupting a conversation between her mother and another mom and then contradicting her mother's words to the other mom. It makes me cringe. I am so happy to be the beneficiary of wisdom and guidance that can outline the child-parent relationship in a way that feels good and right and proper and constructive. In this series we'll explore some of the brilliant nuances of Jewish wisdom pertaining to that relationship, specifically referring to the relationship between middle-aged adults and they elderly parents. We'll also explore aspects of how that relationship continues and is expressed after the parent has passed. And much more.

The children were stranded... then fed... then friends... now they are to be married. Lost from the family, found by a community of beggars. Stable. When we are found, it might have very little to do with the place from which we were lost.

The young boy and the young girl are alone in the forest, visited by generous beggars who provide for them but also do not solve their problems. Slowly, the children learn to trust without needing to be taken care of

Due to factors and events far beyond our control, here we are in a broken world. Broken people in a broken world. But there's hope - broken people can help each other, can nourish and love and guide each other.

The young king has lost himself - but he keeps re-finding himself. And then re-losing himself. That's a good sign.

The son of the king takes over - and steers the entire community toward the pursuit of wisdom. This leads to a community going astray, losing its balance, and possibly burning its bridges toward home

The king tells his son that he knows the son will not retain the kingship, and he must somehow remain in joy despite losing the throne. This calls into question: what is of higher value than success, even higher than family?

Rebbe Nachman's vast and wondrous take lf the Seven Beggars serves as the backdrop for an exploration of serious subjects: legacy, transition, mortality, loss, distraction, pain - and how those can be held and encountered within joy, love, hope, and trust.

There are stories that take place on mountains - the akeidah, the giving of the Torah - and there are stories that take place on hills. What does a hill offer? It allows to ascend to a point that seems "high enough." Sometimes it's plenty. Sometimes it's nowhere close to enough.

The caves in our biblical stories split evenly between being safe access points for other levels of reality and being places to run away from reality. And sometimes caves are both. Avraham buys a cave that is a portal to the next world; Moshe is held in a cave as the Divine Light passes before him; Elijah is confronted in a cave and challenged to understand his own ,mission; Ovadiah shelters 50 prophets in a cave. And Shaul enters a cave to... use the bathroom. What's the pattern?

Wilderness, forest, field and garden occur on the common plane of civilization. Mountains and values leave common altitude to find something else - and to bring it back. Biblical stories that take place in valleys feature someone who is acting on a big stage, but they often do not know it. And that's what makes it work.

The human story starts in a garden. Gardens are places that seemingly can be controlled - because we can manipulate the soil and moisture and the sunlight, we can plant all sorts of exotic things in our gardens. But gardens are never quite sealed - serpents and other pests can find their way in and upset the perfect environment. The Song of Songs - the holiest book of our sacred literature - picks up the theme of the garden and teaches us invaluable wisdom about what it means to create and to live in such a magical place of almost-control.

Continuing to explore wild spaces, we focus on fields, halfway between the mountain and the home, halfway between hunting and breastfeeding. The field is epitomized by Yitzhak, who takes the wild experience of the Akeidah and attempts to integrate it into family - a task in which he only partially succeeds. He makes effort to bless Eisav - a man of the field - with the assumption that Eisav will continue this work of plowing the field. Instead, Ya'akov, a man of the home, makes himself a bit more wide and receives his father's blessing.

Forests are rare in TaNaKh. Much more common as the Jews in diaspora found themselves among the thick woods of Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe. There is, however, one story in Tanakh that takes place in a forest - the battle between King David and his son Avshalom for the throne. More than just a location for battle, the book of 2 Samuel describes the forest as a force in the battle itself, consuming more soldiers than the sword. A "forest that consumes" is something of a theme - particularly among the stories of J.R.R. Tolkien. Yes, forests consume. But they also give life. How can we access the life-giving guidance of the forest without being victim to it's death-giving capacities?

Forest, fields, mountains, wilderness, desert -- each of these spaces have their own nature, their own interaction with the unknown, their own way in which things, and people, grow. We will explore these different spaces over the next seven episodes. Today we will look at the wilderness - the place of danger and vision.

Yoel saw a swarm of locusts coming, and he saw that things could go in one of two directions. Seeing possibility is a gift, and one could imagine the yetzer wanting that not to happen.

Unfortunately, there are levels of yetzer that we simply cannot reach and cannot address. What do we do then? We'll need help.

Even when you know where you are going and what you are doing, there are still so many things that can trip us up. To avoid these near-invisible pitfalls we will have to pay close attention to where we are and where we are going.

In a significant shift, the yetzer harah is not simply something to be cut away or rectified - it is something to be befriended - but it's not as simple as it sounds.

David - after the Bat Sheva affair - recognizes that his system needs an infusion from a higher source, and he cannot do it alone.

Moshe's name for the Yetzer Harah describes a barrier to feeling, connection, and awareness. But it is so difficult to know what it is that you are not feeling!! Perhaps simply being aware that there is a barrier is enough to begin the process of tuning in...

After the flood, God observes that humanity's tendency is toward bad. This is a daunting assessment of human nature, sealed with God's declaration, but it is also encouraging and ennobling. It makes our victories and accomplishments that much greater.

The bad news is that each of us is host to an inner saboteur that perpetually attempts to derail us and prevent us from doing our thing. The good news is that, in one way or another, we are all fighting the same fight. Therefore we have abundant wisdom to share with each other and to learn from others who have fought the fight - assuming we can get over the same of sharing our embarrassing stories, that is.