Noach

When I leave the ark of my morning prayers, it’s a beautiful world—one that I can work with and add light to.

We equate money with security, success, power, comfort or self-esteem. It follows then that when we lack money, it feels like we lack everything that makes life worthwhile and meaningful.

Siblings. How do we understand the intense rivalry intertwined with unwavering loyalty

What’s wrong with materialism, whose fault is it, and how can we fix it?

Is there a window of compassion and understanding that I haven’t opened? Can I see past my gut-instinct judgmentalism and allow myself to experience some of their light?

Despite its violent and threatening nature, the flood is not just an enemy to be overcome or obliterated. It’s the very vehicle that pushes and elevates the ark to greater heights . . .

According to the Zohar, the development of technology is conducive to spiritual growth and is actually a prelude to the coming of Moshiach.

One can well understand then that Noah was worried about bringing new life into the world. Why give birth, toil and work the program that living entails if all that is built could at a point in the future also be destroyed!?

I've been a renegade since kindergarten. At university, the invite was to become a card-carrying member of (shhh… shhh) the Communist Party. And in my forties, the big-wide-world beckons that I fade the rebel's stain and dip myself in dyes of the Bourgeoisie. House, stocks, retirement fund… life insurance. All that stuff...

I loved to play with my grandmother's matriyoshki, sweeping the set off the shelf and enclosing one within her mother until all that stood before me was the ancient matriarch of the set. Silent. Robust. Red. Fat and pregnant with maybe fifteen smaller versions of herself. It crosses my mind that these matriyoshki are a visual model for a secret of the universe...

As a mother, I have a responsibility to teach my sons to do the right thing. But the right thing can mean, at least ephemerally, getting along and cooperating . . .

Noach teaches a person a very fundamental lesson in interpersonal relationships — how to avoid saying negative things about other people, and how to avoid seeing negative things in other people.

We may not be able to save the world, but we can build for ourselves an ark, a sanctum of time—protected and filled with meaning.

Can we make ourselves translucent to receive the light of spirituality even in our mundane, heavily packed and overworked schedules?

How can it be that mere theft brought a much worse punishment than open rebellion against G‑d?

How can one face so much loss? It is human nature to try to avoid pain. But part of healing from the pain is to feel it, and the only way out is through.