The way I respond to the deepest yearnings in my life — more often than I’d like to admit — is to refresh the New York Times homepage, or eat chocolate. We distract ourselves so we don’t have to acknowledge how far we are from who we want to be. Judaism offers us another way to respond: teshuva – often translated “repentance” and which literally means “turning” or “transforming.”
Read MoreEven though we are still in the midst of exile, confronted with unthinkable suffering, the prophet calls on us to imagine what it could look like to live as if the world is suffused with divine light….Just weeks after the breakage of Tisha B’av, Isaiah tells us to envision the world’s hidden wholeness. To recall our endless capacity to heal and find new hope, as individuals, and as a global community.
Read MoreWhen we are indifferent towards the suffering of another, anochi, anochi: there is my “self” here and other “selves” separate from my reality, and capacity to care. By contrast, we all know the sense of wholeness that comes from being truly present to another person. This feeling, Kedushat Levi claims, moves us -- if only for a moment -- from the world of separation, into the world of wholeness, and unifies God, makes God echad, one.
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