Cultivating a Love of Eretz Yisroel

From the moment I first came here to work on kibbutz, looking to experience the cleanest expression of communism in the Free World (…remember this was the 60’s!), and experienced the Land of Israel – the hills, the people, the smells, the songs, the connections – I knew that I was in love. It took [...]

Crisis in Israel

Does everyone know what is going on here in Israel? The crisis that has come to Klal Yisrael? If you are unaware –Prime Minister Sharon is in Hadassah Hospital, having suffered two strokes and massive inter-cranial bleeding. He is on life support. Ehud Olmert (!) is now Interim Prime Minister. Our enemies are rejoicing – [...]

A Fresh Look at Davening

In the beginning, davening was all about singing and dancing and connecting to G-d. They were amazing times…..We would go to the old ivy covered Hillel House at G.W.U. (George Washington University in D.C) on Friday night, first daven the “service” and then make a communal Shabbat dinner (or maybe it was the other way [...]

Parents and the Big Picture

The Big Picture always gives me fuel to energize my life. Drawing away from the detailed mundane facts of the situation, and looking at it in higher terms always helps me pull out of my cramped, subjective position, into one where I feel I can (at least somewhat) participate in the injunction “Let Us Make [...]

Integrating into the Frum Community

When my grandparents took the boat over from Turkey to the States in the early 1900s, they settled into a corner of New York that was flourishing with Sefardic Jews, where Ladino was the lingua franca, and the smell of borekas, garlic, pashtedas and raki hung in the air. While my father learned English as [...]

Finding Our True Selves

I think one of the biggest challenges for us Baalei Teshuva has to be how to take who I have been in my past, who I’ve been raised to be, who I’ve been taught to be, and transform that person into who my potential shomer mitzvot self can be. But who is that person? I [...]

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