More than a decade ago I taught a class on Spanish Mysticism in the basement classroom of a synagogue in the Bronx. Particularly, the class was on the thought Meir ibn Gabbai, who was one of the earliest to systematize Kabbalah. Describing how our actions affect the divine world, he describes two violins side by…

One of my favorite series of books is Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn saga. It incorporates everything great about the genre of science fiction: fascinating worlds, complex characters and explorations of issues alive and well in our own very un-science fiction reality. In this series is a group of characters known as “the faceless immortals”. These beings…

When we look at one another (or anything for that matter), what is it we are seeing? How much of our vision comes from the person in front of us and how much of it comes from what our perceptions add? Even more so, how much do our perceptions then affect our ability to fully…

It just might be that the smell of baking bread is one of the most exquisitely wonderful aromas we experience in life. On Friday afternoons, our house is a scene of countertops dusted with flour, bowls with dough remnants, a full oven, and pervading it all is that one of kind scent of fresh baked…

We live in an age which has witnessed the rise of the “influencer”. The idea of being an influencer has become so prominent that a recent survey cited by Business Insider found that whereas once upon a time, kids used to dream of being an astronaut, they are now three times as likely to want…

Reflection, a looking back on our experiences to draw important lessons, is one of the most critical aspects of the process of education. As scholar Laura Joplin expresses beautifully, “it is the reflection process that turns experience into experiential education”. That brings up an interesting question about Passover. The holiday celebrating the exodus from Egypt…

There are events in life that defy our meaning making capacity. Modern philosophers refer to such events as “absurd”. Sometimes they are collective in the greatest sense, like world wars. Other times they are more particular, such as when individuals and communities experience a tragedy. These two kinds can and often do overlap. It is…

The crab said to his son while he was resting one day “My son, beloved of my soul, straighten your walk, it is crooked Your father is telling you to measure your steps, do not be ridiculed Walk like me and then they will praise you and extol you” And so the son bent his…

When driving on a roadtrip in the middle of the night, I become keenly aware of light. Sometimes, when a full moon shines, it doesn’t even feel like night. I can see the road ahead for miles. There is a certain calm and confidence about reaching the destination ahead. On darker nights, it’s a different…

As I write this, there is so much uncertainty about the road ahead for our country. In particular, the seeming inability to find common ground and the lack of any shared measure of truth is deeply unsettling. While so much of this is wrapped up in the political processes of this moment, I am reminded…