Teshuvah

It’s that time of year when everyone who celebrates winter holidays is preparing for them. The Solstice, Hanukkah and Christmas overlap next week. Wanting to bring more light into a world that’s been getting darker is natural and human. We all have that in common. Last week, I attended a…

Rabbi Lauren Grabelle Herrmann About a month ago, my mother said something on a phone call that took my breath away. While she did not necessarily intend this comment as hurtful, it nonetheless bruised almost instantaneously. …

I gave this drash on erev Yom Kippur this year at Congregation Beth Israel in Walla Walla. It has a lot of bits of things that I’ve been thinking about for a long time condensed into a ~7 minute talk. Have you ever really thought about the term “Tikkun Olam”…

Teshuva, depending on how one experiences it, can be something as uncomplicated as a spiritual balance sheet where debts and the way to repay them are as clear as math, or, to some, it can be more of an infectious undercurrent that captures us as it passes through us. Guilt…

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called “What Are You Refusing To See?” Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi’s incredible book, Divine Information, opened my eyes in explaining about “Torah and Science,” how G-d’s word to us in the Torah is fully and absolutely divine from Hashem. The Torah was given in 1,312 BCE, before most of the discoveries of the world, modern science, and tools like telescopes and microscopes. Yet, the Torah tells us secrets of the world and science long before they were known.

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called “True Self is Helping Others.” The Rebbe’s message was that self-improvement was really about helping others! All the changes we commit to around the Jewish New Year and make in ourselves is not really about us, but rather about…

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, “How Hashem Was Found.” This disabled man was then charged with DUI and spent the next 8 1/2 years in prison. But the Rabbi of the prison helped him to find G-d in all this suffering and slowly he…

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, “Mount Meron and Hating The ‘Baseless.’” We are all reeling from the devastating deaths of 45 Jews on Lag B’Omer at Mount Meron (and many others critically injured) from a stampede during the bonfire celebration near the grave of…

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?” Rabbi Hillel (Pirke Avot 1:14) I got the idea from Rabbi Hillel, who lived at about the same time as Jesus. The three questions at…