BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

I often think about waking up in a world without my parents; being no one's daughter anymore. And being no one's partner since my marriage ended 10 years ago. Yes, I do have my beloved children. But, it would be a very lonely existence without Hashem. There is so much division in the world today. I hope that world leader's, particularly Obama - think very hard about whether their actions are TRULY fostering "estrangement or oneness." My kudos to Ms. Rigler for a terrific article. Waking Up to a World without God's Presence by Sara Yoheved Rigler How different is the world we live in! When the Temple was destroyed, the dogged illusion of Divine absence settled over our world like a perpetual fog. In this world where Divine hiddenness has replaced Divine revelation, we grope for proofs of God's existence, like fish debating about the existence of water. We are relegated to "believing" when once we simply knew. We struggle, through pra...

BEYOND THE THREE WEEKS The month of Av brings with it forgiveness similar to the experience of Yom Kippur. By Michael Strassfeld At first glance, this part of the festival cycle seems out of step with the cycle of our personal lives. For most of us, summer is a time of ease and enjoyment of the outdoors. The natural cycle is marked by the continued growth of spring plantings. But our history, with its mythic dimensions, forcefully reminds us that there can be another kind of summer, one whose heat is a consuming furnace rather than beneficent warmth. Anyone who has spent a summer in Israel can more easily understand how the Three Weeks is in fact in consonance with the natural cycle. There the afternoon sun seems to bleach all the color from the landscape. Movement slows or comes to a halt in the afternoon--for even if the sun is no hotter than in the United States, it seems to beat down unrelentingly on the land's inhabitants. One can easily become parched and debilitated j...

Did G-d Create Evil? By Aron Moss -------------------- Question: Did G-d create evil? Surely G-d made everything. So although it is people who actually do evil, it was G-d who must have created the idea of evil. But if G-d is good, how could He create evil? Answer: Here's the paradox: Goodness exists because G-d desired it; evil exists because G-d doesn't want it. If a human wants something, but doesn't actually do anything about it, nothing happens. You may want a piece of cake, but a cake will not materialize unless someone bakes it. But when you're a Divine Being, your desires create reality. With G-d, just wanting something makes it exist. After all, He is all-powerful; if He wants it, what can possibly stop it from being? He wanted a world, so it was. He wanted goodness, so it was. Now the same applies to G-d not wanting something: it too becomes reality. If G-d decides He doesn't want something, then that decision itself makes that thing exist. G-d's all-...

As a convert, the rest of my family isn't Jewish so I did my rituals alone and joined everyone when I came back from temple. I look at the backyard and realized it had been crying for attention. I have been too ill to do much but I decided to go give the family's garden some TLC. I know, it was shabbat, I should have been resting - but something drew me outside. I had already reseeded my small lawn, put down soil, weed killer and then covered everything with compost. I put out all my delicate glass windchimes and left the metal ones in my collection out. I cleaned rakes, hoes, trowels, clippers and the weed wacker. I uncovered my table, chairs and cafe umbrella, swept up the pine needles and put away my numerous bird feeders. And I felt calm. I also put out a banner which hangs among the morning glories and peonies in my yard that says " Gardening is the best therapy. " Later on this afternoon, one of my family came to sit with me. She also loves to garden and we agr...

"Just like me, they long to be, close to you." - The Carpenters. Judaism talks a lot about closeness to God and cleaving to Torah. We spend a lot of time wondering if we are close to Him. Or judging another person's closeness to Hashem using Halachic law as a guide. But what I believe we really need to focus on is maintaining the proximity to God rather than measuring it. In this study we sought to address several limitations of previous research on attachment theory and religion God by (1) developing a multidimensional scale of attachment to God, and (2) demonstrating that these scales are predictive of measures of personality and affect after controlling for social desirability and other related dimensions of religiosity... Consistent with prior research on adult romantic attachment, two dimensions of attachment to God were identified: avoidance (vs. security) and anxiety. After statistically controlling for social desirability, intrinsic religiousness, doctrinal o...

NO CONVERSION FOR YOU! Remember the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld? Always someone like that wherever you go deciding who can and can't have... Where I used to live in the early 90s there was a newstand on the corner of my block. It had been there for years and was run by what I realized was an older lady. One Sunday morning I walked over to get a newspaper, she said she was all out. As I was leaving I saw one of my neighbors who had lived in that neighborhood for many, many years. He asked her for the same paper... she slid one out from under the counter and gave it to him. My blog friend, Keli Ata - had a post I found very compelling today about a man who was denied conversion. She talks about her understanding of Judiasm and debates the reasons the man was denied. Here are some excerpts: In my case these questions on my concept of G-d were readily addressed. From earliest childhood I never could accept that a merciful G-d would require a human sacrifice from anyone. Washed in th...

AM I JUST A FIGMENT OF SOMEONE'S IMAGINATION? Found this interesting because I understood this questioner's plight. I know what it is to be just "someone's imaginary object." Four years ago I learned what it was to be just words on a computer monitor, to be clicked on & off by someone who refused see me as a human being with feelings. For that person, I was a thing, an "it." But I didn't realize they felt that way until it was too late. Once he was done with me he wanted me to stay gone - and was angry when I proved to be sentient and tangible. My favorite movies, the Matrix series, also touch on this feeling of different realities and what is real and what isn't? However, we are from Hashem's imagination but we are far from "figments." We are his children and He is our loving parent. And children never go "poof" to loving parents. By Tzvi Freeman Ever since I was a small child hooked on The Cartoon Channel, I...

This is Your Brain Praying by Louise Danielle Palmer When Andrew Newberg’s book on the brain science behind religious and mystical experience turned up on the cover of Newsweek, it sparked a lively debate about God, evolution, and the meaning of life. This “neurotheologist’s” work is moving fast, so we caught up on his personal quest to understand the mysterious workings of mind and spirit, his latest research, and its profound implications for our daily lives. When Andrew Newberg, M.D., was a little kid, he had questions so pressing that they would wake him in the middle of the night, get him out of bed, and lead him into his father’s den. How do we know God exists ? he would ask. Why is there good and evil? How do I know what’s real ? “It’s embarrassing to admit, but I was five years old when I started asking these questions,” says Newberg, co-author of the acclaimed book Why God Won’t Go Away . Not the musings of an average youngster. Then again, there is nothing average about Newbe...