Essays for the High Holidays

Be brave and willing to be present to the moment — untamed, treacherous and holy.

I derive strength from imagining that God prays for strength to do what is right.

God created each of us as an individual with the inherent need to be in relationship with another, to connect with another and to share with another.

God is the ground of being, the truth that we so often run away from or delude ourselves about.

Yizkor can be a way of remaining spiritually interwoven with loved (or unloved) ones in the world beyond.

As a marginalized person, I have long found the Yom Kippur liturgy to be as damaging as it is powerful.

Listening with total openness means allowing oneself to be changed, to be called to respond.

One word recited with genuine attention and intention, with genuine focus and purpose, with an awakened and directed heart, has the power of all the words of Torah and all the souls of the Jewish people combined.

Many Jewish texts, ancient and modern, encourage us to forgive those who injure us, even when they themselves have not acknowledged the injury or asked for forgiveness. When we forgive, we let go of our injury and can proceed with compassion.