A Peak Experience on a Peak in Jerusalem
During one of my first visits to Jerusalem, on Tu Bishvat, the early spring New Year of Trees, my then fiance Avraham and I climbed the stairs to a rooftop on a building in Mount Zion, in the Old City.
Keeping a Spiritual Journal
Almost everyone has spiritual experiences, but often they fade with time unless we have a vessel to contain them. A journal can be one such vessel.
A Guide’s Perspective: Meditation by a Spring
The waters emerge from deep within the earth, from the southern end of the Edwards Aquifer. (more…)
Let Nature Guide You Into a New Year
I treasure the late summer, just before the Jewish New Year, as a wonderful time to get out in nature, and I relate it to a Hasidic teaching. “The King is in the Field,” is a parable of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812), founder of Chabad Hasidism. He likened Rosh Hashanah and the Awesome Days through Yom Kippur to a time when a king is in the palace and it is very formal act to approach the throne.. But when the king is traveling to the palace anyone can approach him as he travels through the fields.
Mikveh: Traditional and Personal Rituals of Immersion
A Mikveh is an in-ground ritual pool which can be a natural gathering of water (such as a spring, spring-fed river or the ocean),or an indoor mikveh constructed according to Jewish law. Immersing in the Mikveh is associated with rebirth and purification,and today is used for many traditional and innovative rituals. (more…)
Desert Oasis
The desert oasis is an important biblical image. The beauty and life-giving power of water in the desert suggest a source of spiritual as well as physical refreshment. Ein Gedi, Spring of the Goat Kid, an oasis near the Dead Sea, is known as the place that future king David hid out from King Saul (I Samuel 24:1-2).
Learning to Love the Desert
Long ago I learned to love the desert. I never saw myself as a desert person, much prefering the verdant trees and rivers of the Texas Hill Country or the piney slopes of the Rocky Mountains to what I saw as the dry ugly plains of West Texas.
Light as a Feather
I was in the car from the airport to my annual rabbinic conference in Colorado. Whenever I go to an event like this, I try to set an intention, a kavannah, to guide me during the experience. At the time, I was feeling a heavy preoccupation with career and personal concerns. Suddenly, an intention came to mind: “I would like to take myself more lightly.”
Inspiration at a Thornbush
Moses’ first encounter with the Divine in the wilderness is at bush that burns but is not consumed. According to the Midrash, the choice of a “lowly thornbush” is God’s way of showing that the Shechinah, the Divine Presence can be found anywhere (Exodus Rabbah 2:5) I take this as a message to be more aware and attentive to the divine inspiration that can be found in “ordinary” and humble things, perhaps even in life’s thorns and thickets. These bare winter thornbushes I photographed (at Rockefeller State Park Preserve, except picture 5 and 14 in town, and 12 on a trip to Colorado), inspired me with their beauty and with the amazing connections and patterns that emerge amidst their brambles and tangles.
Learn about my mother’s spiritual journey, or return to the Gateway of Wilderness.
Hugging the Tree of Life
By the end of my first retreat at Elat Chayyim, I had internalized the paradigm of living fully in the mystic’s “Four Worlds” of body, emotions, mind, and spirit and I wanted to commune physically with a tree. I approached a great Pine (I think a White Pine) that grew outside the dining hall, embraced the trunk–yes, I hugged a tree–and gazed upward. I will do my best to embody in words the living vision that I experienced:
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