Jacob isn’t someone who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Instead, he worked — hard — for everything that came his way. The birthright, his father’s blessing, his beloved wife Rachel, all of these accomplishments and relationships came to Jacob as the result of long, arduous toil. Looking back on his life, it isn’t hard to understand why Jacob pauses to consider what was the source of strength that enabled him to persevere. How, despite the difficulties and the disappointments, did our ancestor manage to keep on keeping on? Read more...

Life can be painfully lonely.  Even with the best of health, with adequate incomes, friends, and a fulfilling career, it is still possible to succumb to a sense of the futility and the isolation of life.   Read more...

The great 20th Century philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, taught us to recognize our own role in construing the world. In his remarkable work, Philosophical Investigations, he coined the phrase “seeing-as” to suggest that truly seeing something requires mental organization, selecting what is significant from what is trivial, collating memories, and a host of other activities that make the act of seeing a partnership between the one who sees and the object that is seen. “Seeing-as” is another phrase for mindful experience. Read more...

Each of us, through the power of imagination, retains the ability to transform the world. Cultivating our creative powers--learning to imagine as a community and to channel our social inventiveness towards visions of justice and of holiness--is one of the central functions of Judaism. Our religion trains us to visualize a better world, in which Jews are more passionate and observant, in which all people are kinder and more cooperative. Judaism nurtures that creativity as a source of inspiration and guides us--through mitzvot--toward translating that vision into a living reality. Read more...