More Than Four Sides

Category: Religion

  • Go on! Go on!

    This week will be the last of my first year of being on my own, and I’m being reminded of that anniversary in numerous ways – including my yearlong subscription to this daily dose of Rumi (with the running question of whether the translations are faithful).  I signed up for this because of the Omer Project…

  • Building a Jewish Home—On My Own – Tablet Magazine

    Source: Building a Jewish Home—On My Own – Tablet Magazine This story hit home for me, and then, while reading it, I was asked that the writer had been abandoned by her husband after only 7 months! My marriage had lasted 22 years before imploding. But, the notion of placing mezuzzot on my doorways in…

  • Reunion weekend

    I’ve just checked in at the courtyard of Ross Hall, at 23rd and Eye Streets in downtown Wash DC, where I showed up 24 years ago to start my medical career.  I’m back for my 20th year reunion. Sadly, I had to work in the hospital up in Baltimore this morning, and one thing after…

  • A sukkah in the Inner Harbor

    I went for a run today.  It was my third run this week, which makes me happy.  I also did a 15 minute yoga practice, and I’ve managed to practice yoga most of the days this week (not all, but we’ll get there). On my run today, I initially headed along the southern border of…

  • Promising start to the New Year

    We’ve come through the 10-day High Holiday period, kicked off by Rosh HaShanah, and closing with Yom Kippur, and we are now heading into the less known, but deeply meaningful Festival of Sukkot, ending with Shmini Atzeret and Simchat Torah in a week. I decided to spend the holidays at Beth Am, the congregation that…

  • Selichot – Prayers of forgiveness

    I just returned home from a beautiful and music-filled Selichot service, where I joined my voice with my fellow Zemer Chai chorus members, and several cantors and rabbis, in leading a service of preparation for the High Holidays that are upcoming in just a little over a week. On my way home, I opened up…

  • Counting the Omer – continued

    [continued from Counting the Omer]…I was asked to get involved because I have led meditation sessions at Tikvat Israel for several years, and our rabbi and lead organizer wanted to have a meditation and/or yoga element in the programming.  We opted to devote the preliminary prayers for a Shabbat morning service last week, May 7,…

  • Counting the Omer

    As of today, we are 20 days into the 49 day period of time in the Jewish calendar that connects Passover with Shavuot. The word Omer refers to a sheaf of barley, which in the days of the Temple, each member of the community brought a harvest offering, and was commanded to count the 49…

  • Next Year in Jerusalem…Last Year in Sierra Leone

    We close the Seder with the words “Next year in Jerusalem” (you can read an excellent article about the meaning of these words in the Passover liturgy here). And every year that I recite or sing these words, I think about how cool it would be to spend Passover in Israel, and specifically in Jerusalem. …

  • Three weeks into a new life…

    I signed up for a course put out by Daily Om – A Year of Rumi and this arrived in my inbox today: Lesson 7: The Treasure Revealed Destroy your own house, destroy it now! Don’t wait one more minute! Pull the whole house down! A treasure greater than Pharaoh’s is hidden under it. Go…