Two mentors told me recently that one of the most powerful things a person can do is to forgive. When we were kids in school, as I recall, a big part of our Yom Kippur prep was asking our friends and teachers for mechila, and we were pretty frantic about doing it. As an adult, I think it can …
Sunday night is Rosh Hashanah. The beginning of a new year. New means new. 5778 is ending. It carried its blessings, it carried its learning experiences, it carried its challenges. And it no longer is. It was. Close that book and put it on the shelf. When you are in shul, remember a time when you could see …
The start of a new year is an especially good time to open a notebook and start journaling. Even if writing was never your thing, just putting pen to paper and diving right in will help you access wisdom and insight and get to know yourself better. Journaling has been a tremendous game changer for me and I want everyone …
It’s Elul. If I could have looked into the future a year ago and seen what the coming year would bring, would it have been a relief? A disappointment? It’s impossible to know how I would have felt then with my limited understanding, but one thing I know for sure is that I am not the same woman who went …
This is a reader-submitted post. We so appreciate your contribution! This is a really helpful and thorough review. The last thing people want to discuss after Tisha B’Av is Tisha B’Av. It’s the day when we set aside the distractions of life and look tragedy in the eye. It’s a day of discomfort – all of the inuyim are …
The Jewish calendar has a time of year for every kind of emotional experience, a time when we can fully live the part of ourselves that is most in tune with that spiritual koach. This rhythmic cycle of the calendar keeps all of us in balance, allowing us to live the whole spectrum of human experience. On a global …
Sometimes the days of our lives go by like the flow of water, each day running into the next, indistinguishable from the one before. And it’s easy to forget that each day is a gift that carries a unique identity and potential. Rav Hutner says that the reason the lechem hapanim did not cool off throughout the week was …
The following is an excerpt from Our Bodies Our Souls: A Jewish Perspective on Feminine Spirituality, by Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller. It discusses a running theme here, and also relates to Shavuos. Many women who very much want to marry find themselves waiting a long time before they succeed in finding the right husband. While there are countless avenues through …
Very spontaneously, a few days before Pesach, I decided I needed to get away and booked a flight to E”Y. I left here on the first day of chol hamoed and returned a week later. It was b”H the most glorious week with exactly no agenda and nothing planned in advance. My first day, I was super jet-lagged so …
Occasionally, I take a look at the date on the calendar as if seeing it for the first time, and then blink. March 2018. Wait. Where did I think I would be now? We set unwritten expectations for ourselves and the path life will take. The who, the where, and especially, the when. It’s understandable — we’re humans who …
