Everywhere in this twilight hour, people hurry, worry, think about dinner, turn on televisions. Pour wine, open books. Dogs, collared and leashed eagerly await their evening walk.
Read moreEnter Shabbat (Musical Meditation)
An improvisation to help you move from the jagged week into some spacious, giddy Shabbat consciousness. Melody by Shlomo Carlebach. Guitar played by Susie Miller. Singing by everyone at Congregation Ner Shalom last Friday, March 17, 2017.
Shabbat Shalom.
Drawing Water (from Earth, Sky and Heart)
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.
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