Betzelem Ish v’Isha: Are We Created in God’s Image? Or Is God Created in Ours?

In this week’s parashah, God tells us that life and death, blessing and cursing, are placed before us, and that we should choose life so that we and all of our children and our children’s children shall truly live (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Living and Dying

God places blessing and cursing right in our face and the power to give and take life with just who and how we are, the look in our eyes and our facial expression or smile, and through how we see ourselves and one another.

God places before us life and death and asks us to choose. God places before me and before each individual person living and dying and begs me, you, and us to choose living. When we choose life, we choose to live and to enliven our life and those of others. Only then do we—only then can we—truly become alive.

September 26, 2017March 2, 2018

From Ashes to Atonement: An Annual High Holiday Mindfulness Intensive

Lately, I have been thinking about the Jewish New Year and High Holiday season akin to a mindfulness meditation intensive. In the Zen and other Buddhist traditions, monks and nuns training in monasteries spend summers and winters in intensive meditation practice periods lasting about three months long each. In the Zen tradition, this is called an ango. The Jewish tradition doesn’t really have an ango or something similar, though we can and should. Continue reading “From Ashes to Atonement: An Annual High Holiday Mindfulness Intensive”

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