This page offers a monthly quote that I hope you will find inspiring or meaningful, thought provoking or perhaps even controversial.
Sivan 5773
May it be Your will, our God and God of our mothers and fathers, to bless this prayer group and all who pray within it: them, their families and all that is theirs, together with all the women and girls of your people Israel. Strengthen us and direct our hearts to serve You in truth, reverence and love. May our prayer be desirable and acceptable to You like the prayers of our holy mothers, Sarah, Rivka, Rahel and Leah. May our song ascend to Your Glorious Throne in holiness and purity, like the songs of Miriam the Prophet, Devorah the Judge, and Hannah in Shiloh, and may it be pleasing to you as a sweet savor and fine incense. And for our sisters, all the women and girls of your people Israel: let us merit to see their joy and hear their voices raised before You in song and praise. May no woman or girl be silenced ever again among Your people Israel or in all the world. God of justice, let us merit to see justice and salvation soon, for the sanctification of Your name and the repair of Your world, as it is written: Zion will hear and be glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoice, over Your judgments, O God. And it is written: For Zion’s sake I will not be still and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be silent, until her righteousness shines forth like a great light and her salvation like a flaming torch. For Torah shall go forth from Zion and the word of God from Jerusalem. Amen, Selah.
Rachel Sharon Jaskow, Women of the Wall Prayer
Iyyar 5773
Iyyar 5773
My heart, homeland, is with your dews,
at night on fields of bramble,
and to the cypress's scent, and moist thistle,
I will extend a hidden wing.
Your paths are soft cradles of sand
stretching between acacia hedges,
as though on a surface of pure silk
I'll move forever upon them
held by some unfathomable charm,
and transparent skies whisper over
the dark--a frozen sea of trees.
Nisan 5773
A scholar takes a room on the next street,
the better to concentrate on his unending work, his word,
his world. His grown children
feel bereft. He comes and goes while they sleep.
But at times it happens a son or daughter
wakes in the dark and finds him sitting
at the foot of the bed
in the old rocker; sleepless
in his old coat, gazing
into invisible distance, but clearly there to protect
as he had always done.
The child springs up and flings
arms about him, presses
a cheek to his temple, taking him by surprise,
and exclaims, 'Abba!'--the old, intimate name
from the days of infancy.
And the old scholar, the father,
is deeply glad to be found.
That's how it is, Lord, sometimes:
You seek, and I find.
Denise Levertov "Moments of Joy"
Adar 5773
I am convinced that studying the great works of Hebrew and Jewish culture are crucial to construct a new Hebrew culture for Israel. It is impossible to stride toward the future without knowing where we came from and who we are, without knowing, intimately and in every particular, the sublime as well as the outrageous and the ridiculous. The Torah is not the property of one movement or another. It is a gift that every one of us received, and we have all been granted the opportunity to meditate upon it a we create the realities of our lives. Nobody took the Talmud and rabbinic literature from us. We gave it away, with our own hands, when it seemed that another task was more important and urgent: building a state, raising an army, developing agriculture and industry, etc. The time has come to reappropriate what is ours, to delight in the cultural riches that wait for us, for our eyes, our imaginations, our creativity.A scholar takes a room on the next street,
the better to concentrate on his unending work, his word,
his world. His grown children
feel bereft. He comes and goes while they sleep.
But at times it happens a son or daughter
wakes in the dark and finds him sitting
at the foot of the bed
in the old rocker; sleepless
in his old coat, gazing
into invisible distance, but clearly there to protect
as he had always done.
The child springs up and flings
arms about him, presses
a cheek to his temple, taking him by surprise,
and exclaims, 'Abba!'--the old, intimate name
from the days of infancy.
And the old scholar, the father,
is deeply glad to be found.
That's how it is, Lord, sometimes:
You seek, and I find.
Denise Levertov "Moments of Joy"
Adar 5773
Yesh Atid MK Ruth Calderone
Shevat 5773
I know that the tide is not an independent force, but merely
the submission of the water to the movement of the moon in its orbit. And this orbit in its turn is subject to
other orbits which are far mightier than it.
And so the whole universe is held fast in the clinging grip of strong
hands, the forces of Earth and Sun, planets and comets, and galaxies, blindly
erupting forces ceaselessly stirring in ripples of silence to the very depth of
black space.
Amos Oz
Tevet 5773
Eyes sparkling,
we leaned forward to touch the notes
with our tallitot as they sang by, the soft strum
of the guitar a youthful sound
behind the Hebrew songs, an aching call
to heal the world,
until the prayers ended
and we sat in a legacy of silence
and love.
Jerry Perkoff
Kislev 5773
Man may be replete with selfish motives but a deed and God are stronger than selfish motives. The redemptive power discharged in carrying out the good purifies the mind. The deed is wiser than the heart.
Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man
Heshvan 5773
Physical desire is necessarily selfish, seeing the body as an end itself, rather than a means of divine service. Yet even physical desire contains a spark of holiness, and because this is so, physical desire, while rarely self-transcending, can sometimes be steeped in compassion and goodness. For example, eating a meal of fat beef and spiced wine is a neutral act. But if done to make your mind more receptive to the teachings of Torah, or to honor the Sabbath and festivals, your intention to serve God elevates the act and all involved in it in service to God. The same can be said of humor. If a joke is told to sharpen the mind and uplift the heart, it is in service to God. This is what is meant when we say an action is permitted; it is permitted because it releases the self from the bond of selfishness.Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, Tanya (translation by Rabbi Rami Shapiro)
It is forbidden for a person to be cruel and refuse to be appeased. Rather, he should be easily pacified, but hard to anger. When the person who wronged him asks for forgiveness, he should forgive him with a complete heart and a willing spirit. Even if he aggravated and wronged him severely, he should not seek revenge or bear a grudge.
Elul 5772
To the best of my recollection, when I did something wrong as a
child, my parents blamed me. When my
children do something wrong, I blame myself.
A good parent would have taught them better. In our determination to be the very best we
can be, we’ve created a catch: when our children fail, we fail.
And yet we still have to let them fail. How egotistical is it to insist that our
children’s every action reflects our parenting skills? They’re not trained Labradoodles. They’re children, by nature impulsive and
prone to selfishness and other flaws.
Smooth their paths and repair their gaffes, and we protect our egos at
their expense. It takes a little lousy
parenting (or at least the appearance of it) to let a child grow up.
KJ Dell’Antonia (The New York Times, "Motherlode")
