Maybe the proper measure of our lives is - wait, maybe our lives don't need to be measured at all. Not against anyone or anything or any currency other than ourselves and our own potential. After all, remember what Rebbe Zushya of Hanipol said. "In the coming world they will not ask me: 'Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me: 'Why were you not Zushya?'”
Read moreThe Kedoshim Question: Aural Argument
Rabbi Hillel had been in happy retirement since his death, spending slow days playing Scrabble with Rabbi Shammai, who always complained that Hillel was making up words; Hillel insisted that if he had a plausible definition, especially a humorous one, his words should count. But now Hillel had been persuaded out of retirement in order to argue this most unusual case. He stood at the bench and beamed, despite his slightly disheveled appearance, compounded by matzah crumbs from the sandwich he'd snuck into the chamber in his pocket.
Read moreGuest Drash: Kashrut, Bacon and Higher Values
While I was off performing in Minneapolis last weekend, I asked Shari Brenner and her daughter Nora Brenner-West to lead Shabbat services at Ner Shalom. Below is Shari's beautiful drash on Parashat Shemini. Shari has a Masters in Public Health and has worked in health care, primary HIV prevention and services, for over 25 years.
Read moreZecher Litziat Mitzrayim: Shabbat and the Remembrance of Things Passover
The rabbis would undoubtedly say that God brought us out of Egypt in order to keep Shabbat. They would say that Shabbat, though ancient, couldn't be practiced until there was a people who agreed to practice it, that people being us, in the desert, free at last, beginning our long wanderings. But there's more to say here, because Shabbat is not just a day on the calendar, but is in itself the breath of freedom.
Read moreKi Tisa: Improvisation and Practice
“No pain, no gain,” says the Baal Shem Tov. When someone has attained their enlightenment through yegi’ah, or long, hard labor, their insights deserve to be believed. Just as we’d believe the insights of a longtime practicing Buddhist over an enthusiast just back from their first Vipassana retreat. Because we know the longtime practitioner has gone and meditated over years of cold mornings when she would have preferred to stay in bed. When she says this is worthwhile, it carries weight.
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