We all sinned, and have no excuses but laziness and small-mindedness. But at least – if one transgresses properly – there’s an energy, a sense of being alive. On Yom Kippur we frantically beg for forgiveness, and it’s true, we don’t want to sin anymore. But we don’t just want to keep the rules, we […]Read Post ›
“Let my words drip like dew.” These days after Yom Kippur are days of pure hesed, kindness. The last days were heavy with meaning. Now is a time to just Be, not try and interpret anything. Yom Kippur forced us to confront our fragile mortality. Now, with the shakiness and exhilaration of survivors, we can […]Read Post ›
Reality is random chaos – inasmuch as we are conscious beings, we can swim through life letting Things happen to us. Or: we can respond to Things, and imbue our actions and choices with meaning. This is the essence of Yom Kippur as ‘Day of Judgement’ – taking a pause from the flow of being-happened-to, […]Read Post ›
Moments before Moses’ death, God predicts a gloomy future for Israel: they will sin and be cast away. After forty years of teaching them how to live, Moses is now instructed to “write a song and put it (sima) in their mouths,” although the midrash prefers to read it as siman, symbols. Why a song? […]Read Post ›
Yom Kippur is unique among the festivals – apart from the offering to God, another goat is chosen to be sent into the desert, carrying the people’s sins. “He shall put them upon the head of the goat, and send him away by the hand of an appointed man into the wilderness.” An anti-offering, carrying […]Read Post ›
120 words of Torah 