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.
Pilgrimage to Forgiveness
by Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan, Ph.D.
My husband and I are on a pilgrimage to Mt. Baker. (more…)
Tzedakah for Mountain People (and others)
People living in the Himalayan mountain range have the highest rates of blindness in the world. (more…)
Tzedakah for Spiritual Ascent
There is a Jewish mystical concept that by the merit of giving tzedakah (or learning Torah or doing a good deed) in memory of a loved one, we can help their soul ascend on its journey (aliyat ha-neshamah) in the next world.
Musar: Ethical Development as an Ascent
Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair says, “Heedfulness leads to cleanliness, cleanliness leads to purity, purity leads to separation, separation leads to holiness, holiness leads to modesty, modesty leads to fear of sin, fear of sin leads to piety, piety leads to the Holy Spirit, The Holy Spirit leads to the resurrection of the dead, and the resurrection of the dead comes from Elijah, blessed be his memory, Amen
Sound Track: Creek in an Australian Underground Cave
Wellsprings and Visions
The Hebrew word for “well,” Be’er, באר can be read, “to elucidate, make clear.”
The Hebrew word for “spring,” Ma’ayan, is related to the words for “eye” and “looking” (ayin, ayen, עין).
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.
Torah Study: Well as Meeting Place
Wells play an important role in the Torah. Abraham and his son Isaac measure wealth in terms of the many wells they have dug (Genesis 26:12-22). The Torah has a number of stories about matches being made at a village well. That makes sense since the job of drawing water often went to the young women of the house, and the well was a place where men and women might mingle with propriety (the original “watering hole”). (more…)
A Midrash: Wellsprings as Source of Divine Inspiration
The Midrash takes the biblical story of Jacob meeting Rachel at the well, and “runs with it,” insisting that the scene, with its evocative well, three (mystical number) flocks, and stone (gateway to the well) holds many symbolic allusions to future Jewish history. In particular, the water of the well is a symbol of the Holy Spirit,Ruach Ha-Kodesh, Divine Inspiration:
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