Despite prayers for rain that begin this week, and despite all these rainmaking rituals, they didn't actually want the rain to hit while they were all sitting outside in the sukkah. So they had to struggle with what it meant to pray for something that you're not quite ready for yet.
Read moreCloud Sukkah
The sukkah is a practice of impermanence. Our homes, our bodies, our lives – they are all sukkot. They are temporary. Flimsy. They bend with the wind. They get soaked with rain. We decorate them with the harvest – with our own harvests. All of our best features: qualities, talents, learnings. These adorn the sukkot of our lives. They are beautiful. But even they, like the gourds and apples and palm fronds on a backyard sukkah, eventually compost.
Read moreRedigging the Wells (Rosh Hashanah 5777)
But knowing where we stand, knowing who we are, in a deep way? In a way that fills that vacuum? So that we have a sense of priority and of purpose. Compassion at the ready. Yes, knowing where we stand. That is surely something. That is surely medicine for our aching psyches.
Read moreFirst Jewish Lesson: Blessings of a Broken Heart
It's a good story. About how real we feel when we are brokenhearted, sometimes the most real we ever feel. And how close to God, how in dialog we can be, in those moments of suffering, in the moments when we groan.
Read moreTaking the Elul Plunge
Thankfully, Jews do not typically dive into a mikveh. The indoor ones are too shallow and confined. And natural bodies of water are usually approached by Jews in the old-fashioned way. You go in up to your ankles, and you shpritz. Then up to your knees, and you shpritz. Then the midriff. The shoulders. And after a very, very long time, the head.
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