hard to uncover what is hidden in our lives and then bring this discovery to the surface so it can guide us.
Your Personal Lev Moment
1 1.Have you had a time in your life when you needed to go somewhere but your conscience resisted you? How did you convince yourself to do the right thing? Did you go to someone you trust to ask their advice? If a similar situation happens again, would you have a clearer direction?
2 2.Have you had instances in your life when you felt your spiritual destination, your soul destiny, was hidden from you? What happened that eventually shed light onto the situation? What did you do to find clarity? Did you pray for guidance? At what point did you leave it to the universe, or God, to show you the way? How did it feel to let go of your need to know and be in control?
3 3.This week, focus on the concept of your destination. What destination will make you feel you have used your compass and your conscience to make known all that is hidden to you right now?
4 4.Can you make peace with the idea of not knowing where you are going at times? Can you be satisfied living with situations that seem unclear? Can you hang out in a place that is unknown? How does it make you feel?
Focus on and nourish your conscience this week and make it a week in which you realize your direction, a week when the hidden will become revealed.
Know Your Roots!
If you haven’t figured out by now, I love the Hebrew language. No surprise, of course—I am, after all, an Israeli!
As I have mentioned before, Hebrew is a root-based language, meaning every word in the Hebrew language has three or four Hebrew letters that constitute its root. A combination of root letters can be shared in many different words, creating connection between words. This is something unique only to the Hebrew language.
Let’s take another example I love—the word masoret, which in English means “tradition.” The root for the word masoret consists of the three Hebrew letters mem, samech, and reish (
On the other hand, the word kadima in Hebrew, meaning “forward,” consists of three Hebrew letters kaf, dalet, and mem (
The more you learn Hebrew, the more you will love it!
Your Personal Lev Moment
1 1.What traditions do you pass forward to your family? From whom did you learn them? Why do you still practice these traditions? How do they reflect your values? Which ones make you feel most proud? When you pass your traditions onto your family, what is their reaction? What are the ways you pass them on? Does your family find the traditions as meaningful as you do?
2 2.Can you create a new tradition to pass on to your children?
3 3.Let me share one tradition that is meaningful to my husband and me. We love celebrating Passover. We love the traditions, the food, the story, the concepts, the theme, and the time of year we celebrate this holiday. When we were growing up, even though we enjoyed our own family’s traditions, we wanted to create more meaningful experiences for our children. We modified our traditions a bit to better fit us so that we could pass them on to our children in more meaningful ways. Slowly, we incorporated more activities, stories, and songs. We even wrote questions which we sent to our guests to contemplate before coming over. We purchased fourteen copies of our favorite Haggadah (a book that tells the story of the Exodus), which our guests use (every two get one, encouraging them to connect and socialize further). Every year we take pictures and later insert them into the books. At the end of the evening, our guests write comments in the book (or send us an email later that we print out and glue on the pages of the Haggadah). Our children already have conversations deciding who will take these Haggadot (plural of Haggadah) once we stop hosting the Passover Seder gatherings in our own home. If that is not passing on the tradition and the excitement to the next generation, I do not know what is.
I hope this inspires you to create your own tradition, one that future generations will be so glad to receive!
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Is Change Inevitable?
I recently saw a sign proclaiming “Change is inevitable, growth is optional.” How true is this! In order to make growth meaningful, we often need courage. In the past few weeks, I witnessed several people’s courageous acts. My sister’s behavior during her cancer treatment is the first that comes to my mind. When you think of courage, what comes to mind first? I recall hearing a sermon online from IKAR rabbis where they discussed physical courage vs. moral courage. What do you think is the difference? Most people think of physical courage, such as when people go to war and endanger their life to secure ours. Physical courage can also encompass other ways in which people save their fellow human—we see it in times of catastrophes. Physical courage is most evident when we need people to be leaders, and they step up. Can you think of a biblical figure who showed physical courage? Gideon? Samson? David? Their action are definitely one way of looking at courage.
What I am thinking about, however, is moral courage—the ability to make changes that will impact you and your family or community, without knowing the results and without seeing the outcome. Consider speaking up when it may not be the most admirable thing to do at that moment, when it sometimes means going against the tide of opinions and actions. We have all seen this in our daily lives and on the news. Can you think of biblical figures who showed us moral courage? Avraham and Moses come readily to mind!
The word for courage in Hebrew is ometz lev (
I think moral courage is one of the hardest things we have to face if we want to grow and
