The Greatest Love of All – PART 1
אהבתי אתכם אמר ה’ מלאכי– “I have loved you,” saith the Lord. –Malachi …הנך יפה רעייתי, הנך יפה עד שיפוח היום, ונסו הצללים-אלך לי אל הר המור, ואל גבעת הלבונה כולך יפה רעייתי, ומום אין בך איתי מלבנון כלה…ממעונות אריות, מהררי נמרים ליבבתיני, אחותי כלה; ליבבתיני באחת מעינייך מה-יפו דודייך, אחותי כלה; מה-טובו דודייך מיין, […]
And I am seized by long forgotten yearning
And I am seized by long forgotten yearning For that kingdom of spirits, still and grave; To flowing song I see my feelings turning, As from aeolian harps, wave upon wave; A shudder grips me, tear on tear falls burning, Soft grows my heart, once so severe and brave; What I possess, seems far away […]
Looking at God in the Eyes – PART 1(C)
As God comes to see the pilgrim with both Eyes, so when the pilgrim comes to appear before God, he must be able to see with both eyes. –Talmud, Chagigah I entered there and saw, with an eye of some sort of my soul, an eye above that same eye of my soul, above […]
Looking at God in the Eyes – PART 1(B)
I sink ‘neath the river cool and clear Drifting down I disappear I see you on the other side I search for the peace in your eyes But they’re as empty as paradise They’re as empty as paradise –Bruce Springsteen After Jacob served his father, Isaac said to him, “Please come closer and kiss […]
Those Unheard are Sweeter – PART 3
Never have I dealt with anything more difficult than my own soul, which sometimes helps me and sometimes opposes me. ― Imam al-Ghazali It is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves. ― Teresa of Ávila I Must Speak of […]
Those Unheard are Sweeter – PART 2
He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came […]
Those Unheard are Sweeter – PART 1
Heard melodies are sewet, but those unheard Are sweeter…. In his famous “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” the great Romantic poet John Keats described how he dreamily gazed at the scenes portrayed on an urn, scenes of beauty and happiness that for centuries have been on the verge of reaching their culmination. We do not […]
The Bridge
Indeed, the mystical and the human, the spiritual and the physical, present themselves to us at first as two different and distinct modes of being. Opposites. The Kabbalah teaches, that this is the deeper meaning of the single act that G-d did on the second day of creation—“And God made the firmament, and divided the […]