BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

WHITE FLAG Dido I know you think that I shouldn't still love you, I'll tell you that. But if I didn't say it, well I'd still have felt it where's the sense in that? I promise I'm not trying to make your life harder Or return to where we were I know I left too much mess and destruction to come back again And I caused but nothing but trouble I understand if you can't talk to me again And if you live by the rules of "it's over" then I'm sure that that makes sense And when we meet Which I'm sure we will All that was then Will be there still I'll let it pass And hold my tongue And you will think That I've moved on.... Well I will go down with this ship And I won't put my hands up and surrender There will be no white flag above my door I'm in love and always will be

Only Breath Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam or Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being. Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi translated by Coleman Barks

Goy Vay By Eric Konigsberg Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is proud that some of his best friends are not Jewish. It was one of the first things he said when we met. "Lots of non-Jews are great," he said. "They're going to save Judaism." In 1988, the Chabad Lubavitch organization of Crown Heights dispatched the 22-year-old Shmuley to Oxford University with instructions to set up a Jewish-outreach center on campus. Within two years, he made the L'Chaim Society, as he named it, second in popularity among campus clubs only to the Oxford Union, the debate club. Lectures he hosted drew as many as 2,000 students. Often, most of them were not Jewish, and often, the speakers came from the secular world, including Mikhail Gorbachev, the Latin American soccer star Diego Maradona, Jerry Springer, and Boy George, who spoke about his addiction to drugs and the value of shuva, repentance. "I realized I could do more than hold Shabbat services," Shmuley says. "I reali

DEFINE LOVE Today is Valentine’s Day – already a warning shot over my bow. I thought about being in school when I was younger. Writing those essays. What does Valentine’s Day mean to you? Define Love. Today as I was driving my kids back from school, I watched. Couples hand in hand. Flowers, balloons, teddy bears. That’s fine it all has it’s place, but it dawned on me. Love. I have never known what that is. I am older and divorcing and realizing... And Love is something very different to me now. But it hit me. No one ever looked at me like that. No one ever treated me like that. I realized those Walt Disney movies are a lie. No one is going to wake this Sleeping Beauty. No one is going to find a glass slipper for my big feet. No one is going to take me away on a white horse. I know that. I would've liked to be Loved. Really. Genuinely. Before I crossed over - knew something true. Have an honest partner. I don’t feel the NEED to be married. I felt the need for connection. I have neve

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