Perhaps you’ve seen the images. Perhaps you too cocked your head, spit out your coffee in disbelief and pondered aloud, “WTF!? That’s one whopper of a non-sequitur!” Did that young man’s lamentable death really just get co-opted by a political movement some 6000 miles away?

I mean, they just jumped from Ferguson to Palestine in a single bound. As if it was a new dance move. The Palestinian Reshuffle. You just straddle 2 continents, an ocean & a sea and shimmy right out of the facts and into the magical realm of politically-profitable fallacy.

Seriously!? It’s like seeing Ronald McDonald dressed up as a traffic cop, rerouting all cars to the nearest Golden Arches. Or like a hammer who sees a doughnut, claims it’s a nail and starts banging on it indiscriminately.

My mind reels at the inanity of it all. And yet the illogical segue gets swallowed whole into the global conversation. Taken in as truth, tweeted and shared. As the detour to Palestine is once again well-paved by misinformed people’s best intentions.

The Benefit Of The DoubtLet’s for a moment give the propagators of this maddening message the benefit of the doubt. After all, there are 4 important things that the Pro-Palestinian protestors got right.

#1. Drawing Political Parallels Makes Sense (except when it doesn’t):Making political parallels is a savvy way to express the conflict. It makes sense to connect two disparate movements, to draw poetic parallels, to make political similes.

But aren’t there more compelling, more coherent & fact-based parallels to be drawn?

For instance, you say you’re concerned about violence based on ethnicity.

How about penning a nice big sign protesting ISIS’s rape & slaughter on Yazidis & Christians in Northern Iraq? Or compose a catchy chant about the ethnic slaughter-house known as South Sudan?

Up in arms about heavily armed police squads against a defenseless public? Why not stage a sit in against Putin’s impudent invasion of the Ukraine? Or how about some creatively expressed distress about the government-sponsored pounding of its citizens in Syria?

By all means, draw political parallels to Ferguson. But first, check in with all thosewell-researched fact-based lists of the World’s Worst of the Worst Countries for Human Rights. The lists are populated with a teeming plethora of oppressive regimes – from North Africa to Asia to the Arab dictatorships of the Middle East. But Israel? When it comes to tallying the world’s most protest-worthy countries Israel is nowhereto be seen.

#2. Yes, There Is A Racism Problem In IsraelRacism is indeed a deep link between Ferguson and Israel. Both places suffer from the ills of minority maltreatment. It’s just that you have confused the characters. Fact is, the actual minority in the Middle East is the Jews. There are 6 million Israeli Jews surrounded by 300 million Arabs & all their explicit hostilities. Worldwide there are 13 million Jews compared to 1.4 billion Muslims. Jews are outnumbered 1 to 100 by Muslims. Talk about a vilified minority population!

And speaking of discrimination. Upwards towards 1 million Jews have been exiled, even violently expelled, from multiple Arab countries. Explicitly because of their religion and ethnicity.

Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and countless other neighboring ‘organizations’ – are all openly dedicated to the eradication of this small Jewish minority enclave. They state it in their charters. They indoctrinate it into their children. They demonstrate it in their terror threats & overt attacks.

So, please, by all means raise high your protest signs and demand a cessation of violence against the true minority in the Middle East.

#3: There is an occupation in IsraelYes, my justice-driven protesting friends, there IS an occupation happening here in Israel. It is a PREOCCUPATION — and it is taking over all of our computer screens.

The world is strangely, magnetically & illogically, preoccupied with Israel.

This land is the archetypal preoccupied territory.

Seasoned journalist Matti Friedman meticulously lays out statistics that reveal what he calls “the resurgence of an old, twisted pattern of thought and its migration from the margins to the mainstream of Western discourse—namely, a hostile obsession with Jews.”

He exposes the preoccupation in the media. Just read this excerpt of his excellent article, “Insiders Guide to the Most Important Story on Earth”:

When I was a correspondent at the AP (Associated Press), the agency had more than 40 staffers covering Israel…That was significantly more news staff than the AP had in China, Russia, or India, or in all of the 50 countries of sub-Saharan Africa combined…

The volume of press coverage that results…gives this conflict a prominence compared to which its actual human toll is absurdly small. In all of 2013, for example, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict claimed 42 lives—that is, roughly the monthly homicide rate in the city of Chicago…In contrast, in three years the Syrian conflict has claimed an estimated 190,000 lives, or about 70,000 more than the number of people who have ever died in the Arab-Israeli conflict since it began a century ago.

Actual statistics speak volumes when it comes to exposing the preoccupation happening with Israel.

#4: The Pro-Palestinian protesters are doing their jobNow here’s the most important thing. Let’s consider that maybe this preoccupation is not merely a sad fact. Maybe it is actually a fortunate ordering of reality.

Yes, the world is preoccupied with this little slice of land. But why?

When we look through the slant of purely spiritual eyes, the answer immediately shimmers forth. Our sources states it clearly – the Jewish people are fated to be “a light unto the nations”. How better to fulfill this fate than having a ceaseless news stream fanning out from Jerusalem to the furthest reaches of the wifi’ed world?

Yes, the spotlight is upon us and we sweat under its heat. Yes, the magnifying glass burns. But it burns for a reason.

We have a voice, a vision, that we are required to share. Share & repeat. Share & repeat.

The world’s microphones are turned On and the volume is turned Up. We are being watched. Even stalked. — Let’s just view it as the world staying close in touch.

Just skim the literature about the “End of Days”. It is spelled out explicitly. This current conflict was already written up on the news feeds of antiquity known as prophecies. Written several thousand years ago, we are told that the “Messianic” reality will be such that the entire world will know – in an instant – the events occurring in this here long-contested territory.

The fact that we already have set into place this super-human possibility, this omni-present awareness, known as the internet is nothing short of a miracle. We are already living this miraculously interconnected reality that was described in detail several thousand years ago. A world with immediate access to information.

What happens in Israel NEVER stays in Israel. The events are being revealed before the eyes of all.

According to our sources, this world-wide Israel preoccupation is written deep into humanity’s genes and destiny.

So we might as well make the most of being under this incessant inspection and scrutiny.

Our sign-toting friends in Ferguson and beyond are just doing the job they were sent here to do. Sure, I’d prefer they would all close up shop and go have a quiet evening at home with the kids. But they don’t and they won’t…probably to the End of Days, whatever and whenever that may be.

Are you doing your job?So in the meantime, I would pose this question to my Israel-dwelling & Israel-loving friends. I ask you – Are you doing your job? What are you doing with this metaphorical microphone planted squarely at your teeth? What are you doing with the influence placed into your hard-laboring hands? What banners are you raising and what slogans are you chanting?

Because the world is entranced and listening.

As for me, I’m gonna play up the preoccupation. Milk it for all the good it’s worth.

I’m gonna live here and love it — despite Iran’s souped-up threats and daily terror attacks. I’m gonna feed my Hebrew-talking children on high-fiber Jewish wisdom. Gonna type hymns to Israel’s innovations. Gonna fight her battles, suffer her losses and sing her praises. I will pen her lamentations and offer life and limb to sit here in the lime-light of these epic apocalyptic & long-predicted days.

Because I want to see the nations lit up with Jerusalem’s impeccable irreplaceable SHINE. I know we got it and I wanna share it.

So, brothers and sisters, take up the mic and make the most of this opportunity.

Speak to the world – as we’ve been instructed – words of truth and words of peace.

Sure, we might still need to work on our delivery. But, G-d help us, let’s do our darnedest to raise bright banners, to protest injustice, to give out like candy words of truth and words of peace. To both our friends and to our enemies. Light up the ether with words of truth and words of peace.

After the latest greatest wholesale slaughter of Jews in a Jerusalem synagogue I received a message from a concerned friend in America. She wrote that her heart was breaking…for both sides. She called for shared mourning for the losses…on both sides. And something in me broke inside. I felt angry, betrayed, abandoned.

Coined myself a new phrase: Being “Peaced off”. Loosely defined as: That confused, somewhat shameful yet angry feeling that happens when you get punched in the face and in response your friend asks why you don’t have more compassion for your assailant’s bloody knuckles.

Please understand, I am a peace maker. I go faithfully to interfaith gatherings. I make peace-minded videos like this one.

And yet, there is a line. A subtle and all too easily twisted line. Between pursuing peace and getting played by the darkness. And when that line gets twisted, well, I get peaced off.

The photo above says it all – the dove of peace getting co-opted by the vultures of war.

For me, the peace doves are those bright beautiful West-Coast-types who ooze equal rights. They are my dear friends whose ideals I share, whose work I admire, whose faces are radiant & food is organic.

I have lived amongst you and loved you and am typing gingerly lest I offend you. Because I care about you and your opinions matter to me. And so please forgive me my honesty.

But your gentle countenance and calls for compassion scare the hell out of me.

During this summer’s war with Gaza a thousand rockets could rain down on Israel, but what pained me most? The pummel of Facebook posts from friends calling for Israel to halt its aggression. As Gazan children perished as human shields. As the world looked on with horror when another school was bombed for the launch pad in its backyard. What most peaced me off was the launch of another naive & self-righteous long-distance call for peace.

Pointing fingers at the Israeli army might be convenient, but it is dangerous. Supporting the under-dog is admirable, until the under-dog turns rabid and left free to roam the neighborhood streets.

Remember the Menendez brothers, circa 1990? Two young men who brutally murdered their parents to get their inheritance. They begged the jury for mercy basically based on the fact that they were but poor pitiful orphans. The children of abusive parents. Their defense lawyers knew just how to play off the kind compassion of the court, banking on the goodness of people’s hearts. Skewed sympathy let them nearly get away with man-slaughter.

And so too in Israel. We see the daily butchering of justice in the name of the world’s most deceptive form of compassion.

It’s why I appreciate ISIS. They are such straight-forward people. No room for doubt or confusion there. Just blatant evil, black-hearted horror shows.

So different from the evil on the Jerusalem streets & free-floating in the ether. This beguiling  blackness garbs itself in the most stylish of greys. This evil feeds off of our well-intentioned moral confusion. It feasts on misplaced compassion, political-correctness, muddled morality. All these lofty ideals of peace & reconciliation are but lethal weapons in the hands of sleek PR fiends.

So, my dear friends with flowers in your hands, yes let’s convene another peace gathering and I will be there with bells on. But before that let us be discerning and draw clear lines. All is not a wash of oneness, equivalencies, equalities. There are cancers that can not be cured by chanting. Conflicts that can not be quashed through diplomacy. Aggressive medicine can sometimes be the most compassionate treatment for the disease.

The time is long overdue for us to lead the doves away from the vultures’ company.

Nachlaot, Jerusalem: We’re all living homeless and on the streets around here. And yet we strut about like millionaires, partying like rock stars…spiritual rock stars that is.

It’s Sukkot after all, zman simchataynu, time of our bliss. Sukkot is the grand EXIT from all the fixed sureties of our lives. We abandon sturdy shelters and opt instead for flimsy shacks. We are busy studying how to release our clutches on wealth to take firm hold on the riches of spirit instead. This is our work right now — in the shade of the sukkah — to learn faith.

Though, luckily, in Jerusalem at Sukkot time, we get moments when we don’t have to just rely on faith. Because here, in the sukkah shade, we actually get a taste. It’s as if something magical happens and we finally grok the fact that we are heirs and heiresses to a vast TRUST fund.  A bank account that’s been accruing interest for some 3000 years. Daily deposits made for millennia by our diligent ancestors. And when it’s Sukkot in Jerusalem, it feels like we are finally cashing in on this long awaited inheritance. There is this paradoxical sense that even as we sit in these rickety shacks, we are  moguls of fortune. We are royalty.

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HAGILBOA STREET – THE FIFTH-AVENUE OF SPIRITUALITY

Join me for a Sukkot tour of the spiritual-opulence found on my silver sliver of a Nachlaot street.

HaGilboa is a wide-armed pedestrian boulevard in the heart of a metropolis. Zero cars, center of town. And it’s green. Crazy green. All sorts of leafy charm. It’s a few steps away from the raucous of the Mahane Yehuda outdoor Market, yet here it’s quiet, cozy & bird-chirpingly beautiful.

During Sukkot, it is stocked with sukkahs of all shapes and sizes, colors, tunes and odors, each its own unique jewelry-box. Ceaseless streams of awe-struck tourists amble about, wide-eyed at the vision of sukkah upon sukkah lining this boulevard of bliss.

But the grandest most glorious thing about this streets? It is in the heart of Jerusalem in the year 5775, when the ingathering of the exiles is on full-force display. It is a teeming testimony to the fact that the prophetic promises of the return of the Children of Israel to the streets of Israel are being fulfilled,  one sukkah at a time. On HaGilboa Street we are sitting pretty with the winning numbers to the largest spiritual lottery known to man.

On HaGilboa you can hear the languages of the world waft through thin sukkah walls. A mix of accents of Greece, Morocco, France, England, America.  We snack dreamily on the taste of the good old days, the ancient days…when the Pilgrimage Festival witnessed devotees of all stripes pouring into Jerusalem’s streets to “see and be seen” in this G!d-drenched capital.

Sitting in the sukkah amid all this opulence, we get a taste of the immense wealth that lays hidden just under the surface of this all-too-often challenging life as an ‘ingathered’ immigrant in Israel.

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Let’s meet the neighbors:

The Brodts: Rabbi Sholom & Judy.  The sagely tzadikim of English-speaking Nachlaot. They devotedly run Simchat Shlomo Yeshiva. Carrying the torch of Reb Shlomo Carlebach’s teachings, his depth, his sweetness. Their Sukkah is breezy and packed with flower-crowned tables that seat the masses of seekers and singers who nightly gather here for some serious spiritual bliss led by Reb Sholom.

I interviewed R’Sholom & Judy about how they made their spiritual millions. Judy – a petit female Dalai Lama – looked at me and said, “In my mother’s house they would say, ‘Were not poor we just don’t have money’. Why put a ceiling on just a million when you can plug into infinity?” – She gave me her usual loving gaze, squeezed my hand tight and said, ‘Just connecting to another person is beyond infinite…so I’m the wealthiest right now.’

Reb Sholom with his hand-rolled cigarette & twinkling eyes added a stunning string of Hassidic stories from his endless repertoire.  And ka-ching, it was as if a deposit was made in my spiritual bank account right then and there. I love having spiritually wealthy neighbors!

Then there’s the Steinbergs. Reb Dovid & Maayan. Two more Carlebach die-hard torch-bearers. And no shleppers either. He’s a hornist who played with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, she’s an award-winning international painter. Dovid trumpeted with Reb Shlomo for some 20 years and has a repository of Shlomo stories and teachings to prove it. Their sukkah is bright white shine of stories and song and the best cuisine this side of the Mediterranean.

They keep a plate of welcoming cookies and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s on their sukkah table at all times – with an open tent policy of whiskey and cookies for the visiting crowds from off the streets.

Next, the Hendries: Shifra & Dovid – our Chabadnik friends, newly made aliya from New Jersey. Their sukkah sparkles with several dozen blue and clear crystals that swing whimsically from the ceiling beams. Gotta love crystal-carrying Chabadniks!

These two are famous for their blend of New Age sensibilities with old-world Jewish wisdom. They run a website that boasts tens of thousands of visitors & hard-core fans from across the globe. Shifra shares “authentic Kabbalah” wisdom with the masses that will blow your mind. All done electronically from their Nachlaot palace.

Dinner at their house features a small female army of 20-somethings from Crown-Heights who pack in to the Hendries house for the holidays. Six girls to a room! They cook and clean and smoke endless hukahs in the sukkah, cracking jokes and belting out boisterous Chabad tunes to the ire of their Sephardi neighbors trying to sleep in the sukkah next-door. Dovid & Shifra preside over the circus royally. Their whole house is an alive, over-brimming, slightly tipsy, blissed-out taste of olam-habah, the world to come.

Finally there’s the sukkah of the Greek synagogue. They don’t speak English but they so speak my language. These guys are up daily – um, religiously – at the crack of dawn for their vatikin prayers. There is reportedly a book out there that lists the possible candidates for the Lamed-Vavnikim, the 36 Hidden Righteous People upon whom the world depends. Of course it is the height of irony that there should be a book publicizing the hidden tzadikim.  But whatever the case, the Rabbi of this shul is listed as one of the candidates. He walks down the street, trailed by his devoted followers, many of them in their late 80’s. We all hush as he shines and sheds blessings as he walks by.

Their sukkah has tall wooden walls and photos of holy men & Kabbalists covering the walls.  They sing and sing and sing. And are already taking their post-lunch nap by the time the rest of us head out to shul.

Finally, here is a shot of our sukkah. Pimped out meticulously. We are big on glamping – glamour camping. Outside in the elements, yet replete with fine dining, soft bedding, ample bling and partying.

After all, on HaGilboa Street we don’t sleep in 5-star hotels, we sleep in 5 billion star hotels made of palm fronds and tapestries. It’s Sukkus – Come join us and cash in on the inheritance of a lifetime found strewn all over Jerusalem’s streets.

Okay ladies (because I know I lost the men with the title), this one is for all of you big-boned un-toned full-bosomed full-blown beauties out there who struggle daily with your face in the mirror or your Spanx in the morning. This one is for all of you empowered feminists who know not to get sucked in by ‘the system’ and yet find yourselves falling victim to yet another inner-struggle with your outer image. This one is for you who have watched your visage grow ever-bigger-broader-wider and wondered how to handle your emerging self with grace despite those deep seated jabs of self-hate.

I am writing to say that your struggles with weight are but a wide-open portal to your greatest spiritual development. So here’s to treading the ‘body path’ consciously and reaping the unique wisdom that our bursting physiques are begging us to reap.

My Path: From Homecoming Queen to Pregnant & 40The pursuit of “pretty” is a permanent fixture within me. It sits squarely at the center of my earliest memories, strivings and insecurities. I have chased it feverishly for as long as I can remember. And when I’m not chasing it I’m just as feverishly rebelling against it. (Just take a look at my Protest to Miley Cyrus video.)

The height of this beauty pursuit was high school of course. I was an All-American cheerleader. A pretty-girl. A party-girl. Even got crowned Homecoming Queen. Staggering portions of my self-worth were predicated on being Pretty. Most problematic for me, though, was that pretty was quickly becoming equated with skinny. And skinny I wasn’t, thanks to my formidably thick Russian Jewish genes.

I will never forget that unsettling moment when my high-school boyfriend’s father referred to me as “volumptuous” (awwwkward).  And how that same boyfriend later broke up with me for some freshman stick of a girl in an excessively short skirt. I learned well the formula that pretty/desirable = skinny…and skinny I would never be.

Thus began my struggle with body-image. Mostly a quiet behind-closed-doors feud between me and the mirror. Between me and food. Between me and societies’ most demolishing body messages. I have had ups and downs, with bouts of work-outs & short-lived diets. Plenty of dollars spent on surreptitious weight-loss concoctions, herbs and detoxes.

And I have managed. Managed to accept the slow accumulation of pounds per decade. Managed to create a safe distance from mainstream media and its mad dictates. Managed to stay self-confident despite the scale’s loud say.

And yet, beneath all that managing there has been a body-image monster in-waiting. In waiting until now…

Now that I am 40…and pregnant…again.

Confession Time:You know how there are those skinny pregnant women. The ones who  don’t look pregnant from behind. Well, I do look pregnant from behind. I look pregnant from behind a van. I am as big and round as an ancient clay goddess of fertility. My hefty waddle is in full-throttle. It’s comical and remarkable and often times unbearable.

I avoid cameras and mirrors. I avoid scales and shopping. I avoid walking outside. I avoid intimacy. I avoid others. I avoid me. I have cancelled speaking gigs. I have made elaborate excuses for staying in bed. I have lied about my due date. I have cried in the front of the mirror and kvetched endlessly to friends. I know I’m a walking wonder of creativity, a cosmic cradle of life. I get the massive miracle going on here beneath all this bulk. But that doesn’t mean I am graciously handling my super-sized self in the mirror. Quite the contrary.

The Turning Point:It was a few Fridays ago. There I sat in my pre-Shabbat ritual of weeping on my bed, encircled by mounds and mounds of “the world’s most detestable” outfits. Knowing that not a one of them will cover up this bulging form, this third chin, this weighty shame.

And so I just sat there and cried it out piteously.

Until my 5-year old daughter came bounding into the room, begging me to braid her hair so she will “look pretty”. So that she will look PRETTY!

And this all-too-familiar phrase juxtaposed with my own weepy so not-pretty face just jolted me. Thankfully. Finally. Jolted me. Out of that messy slump of self-detest & fat defeat. Pulled me back to real myself and all I knew to be true.

Mainly that I had to get this self-image issue under control once and for all. — For my daughters sake, for my marriage’s sake, for my sake…and, gosh darnit, for the sake of full-bodied women the world over!!

I wiped my tears, cracked a smile and triumphantly stood on the bed in all my enormity. Brought her brush to my lips like a mighty microphone and pronounced: “Beauty, my dear, is not braided hair! Beauty is not embedded in mirrors or reflected in numbers. Beauty is self-love and good-acts and a smiling neshama that faces obstacles with grit. Beauty is not on the surface, it sits at the inner-essence of all worthy people & worthy things!”

My daughter giggled and heartily agreed. She hugged me tight and we proceeded to braid her hair for Shabbat. I threw on some skirt or another and this time bore the sight of myself in the mirror with a smile, a sense of humor and a commitment to make some meaning out of this wild goose chase of self-love in the face of staggering weight.

I was determined to turn this physical growth into spiritual growth. To plumb the lessons inherent in this struggle that had finally & fully risen to the surface.

And though it was pregnancy which accelerated my path of fat-facing enlightenment, I do believe that the wisdom I have gained along the way is applicable to my non-pregnant body struggles and anyone else grappling with weight gain.

So here are the best pieces of wisdom I have gained from my weight gain. I pray they will be growthful.

The Spiritual Path of Fat in 6 StepsStep 1: Become Fat Conscious“Consciousness is the goal of all spiritual practice. Only when we are conscious can we truly CHOSE life and live on the enlightened level of free-will.”

With consciousness we can chose to turn off all of those ‘automatic pilot’ switches we rely on to our own detriment. With consciousness we get to take the wheel and drive towards our highest goals of love of self and others instead.

My weight gain birthed a more conscious me. It pushed me to unearth my own long-buried issues with body. I have gotten to see in technicolor reality how readily I bow down to molten images of thin-beauty. I have finally glimpsed my own unfathomably deep — and utterly unproductive — contempt for fat.

To Do: Notice when you’re bowing deep to the molten images of beauty. When do you unconsciously judge or distance yourself from ‘fat people’? When do you deprive yourself or others of love & acceptance because of size? How do you let a preoccupation with beauty drive your life and define your self-worth?

Step 2: Take Out the TrashWith eyes more widely open I have taken another long look at my habits, my life…and my girls’ bedroom. It is shockingly over-spilling with images of teeny-weeny Disney princesses.

In my unconsciousness I just figured, “Ehh, it’s no big deal”. And yet I know empirically from my own weeping in the mirror that it is a big deal. A very big deal.

Why has it been okay with me to stuff my daughter’s impressionable minds with these images of pretty = skinny? Especially when I know very well that they will most likely be inheritors of my Jewish Princess – not Disney Princess – genes?

Why? Because I was unconscious.

But now I want to be proactive. So, yes, I just threw out the Barbies, the Auroras, the Cinderellas. I like little Sofia, she can stay. But the rest got to go.

To Do: Look around your house. Where are there objects or messages that mar your self-love and acceptance? Ask yourself, “After looking at this magazine/Tv show/toy am I – or my children – more or less likely to end up weeping in the mirror?”

And then throw away the toxicity, my friends. Just throw it away.

Step 3: Get Trigger Happy:Here is my commitment. Every time I get triggered by my own self-detest in the looking glass, I will use that very trigger as a reminder to love myself instead. Perhaps it sounds trite. But trite works, y’all. It’s like Pavlov’s dog hearing the bell. The mirror trigger of detest reminds me to pronounce my new mantra instead, “I am big & beautiful.”

To Do: Pick the self-loving mantra that works best for you. Next time you find yourself muttering under your breathe how ugly/fat you are, quickly just insert this new statement instead.  Try it. It works.

Step 4: Remember Golda & Get Resourceful:Golda Meir said fabulously, “Not being beautiful was the true blessing. Not being beautiful forced me to develop my inner resources. The pretty girl has a handicap to overcome.

Golda got it. And here is our chance to get it too.

Remember my Friday afternoon paradigm shift? Part of my agony was that we were about to have 30 tourists over for Shabbat dinner. Our job was to share with them the beauty of this Jewish tradition. Inside of me was this horrific little gremlin that insisted that our guests would simply not have a good time if their hostess was anything other than thin & pretty!

Banishing the gremlin from my mind, I said to myself, “Well, I’ll just have to rely on my stellar intelligence, wit and charm instead.” And that is what I did. I got resourceful and it was so deeply rewarding.

To Do: Develop your inner resources. How many hours a day would you have to invest in exercising to be thin? Imagine if you invested that much time in developing your inner-muscles of mind, communication, personality? Who are you inside? What are your valuable ideas, opinions and unique service in the world that have nothing to do with your looks? Focus there! Move the focus from your outer features to your inner treasures. And polish those inner gems.

Step 5: Shift from Body to SoulStop for a moment and point to yourself. Where do you point? Your face, your chest? Where are YOU located, after all? Where is the self that you identify with?

Every spiritual tradition agrees, we are souls inside of bodies. And yet, so often we sculpt our self identity with the clay of our physical form. The truth is, the body is but the vessel that keeps our souls tethered to ground.

I have always believed this to be true. But I learned it on a whole new level, in my limbs, when I put on this extra weight. I remember one morning when I was at the grocery, feeling fat as usual. I was walking down the aisles all self-conscious about my puffy cheeks & waddle. When suddenly I just got fed up with the discomfort & self-consciousness and decided to see myself not as my bulging body but as my in-dwelling soul.

The good news about my fat-discomfort was that it pushed me, literally pushed me, out of identifying myself as my face. I am not my puffy cheeks. I am the soul shining through my eyes.

Getting fat has guided me to identify less with my body and more with my soul.

To Do: The next time you are walking around self-consciously remember, “I am not my body. I am my soul.” Revision yourself. Re-identify. Use this as an opportunity to oust your body from the throne of your self-identity and place your soul there instead.

Step 6: Be Healthy…Truly HealthyG!d forfend that this approach should be taken as a license to ignore our bodies, be reckless or eat carelessly. By all means, eat healthy, move your body. It is your soul’s vehicle after all – best to keep it running clean.

But don’t stop there. So often we think the only way to reach our goals is to hate and punish ourselves out of our  ‘laziness’. Every day as a psychotherapist I watch clients cling on to self-hate because they think it is productive. Because they think it is the only way to change, to improve, to generate success. “If I hate my fat self then I will be more likely to exercise.” Maybe.

But I have found that those external ‘successes’ born from self-pushing through self-hate do NOT create a truly successful life. They might generate external milestones but they do not generate internally satisfied lives.

To Do: Hold the paradox of self-improvement from a place of love and acceptance. Self-shaming ourselves into success does not a successful life make.

Self-love, my friends, is the sole path, the soul path, for a truly rewarding life.

Step 7: Celebrate the Gains!So here’s to celebrating our bodies in all their shapes, shades and sizes. May we greet the souls that peek out from behind our faces. May we use life’s most challenging experiences to generate greater growth, greater consciousness, more weightiness & fulfillment. When we gain weight may we also gain wisdom!

I was fresh off the bus. In so many ways.

It was my maiden journey, my first full-blown foray into Israel, into Torah-learning in a proper Seminary. I was post-college, Jewishly unpolished, but with promise…

This particular night was my first bus ride down to the far reaches of Eilat. It was a midnight-on-the-Oasis type of trek through the desert in the darkness. Bumpy as a camel’s back and yet I slept.  

Upon arrival I tumbled out of the bus to greet this pristine expanse of fresh black star-specked sea. The Red Sea, Reed Sea, aqua green Sea. Of course all pitch black to me. But entirely alluring, even demanding. After all, I was in my still-rowdy early twenties & it was my custom to throw myself into warm bodies of water on a whim. So I set out straight for the sand. Threw my bags down on the soft shore and entered, simply entered, that epic expanse of water.  

Entered like I was Nachshon or Miriam or the fulfillment of some ancient promise. Fully-dressed. Breathless.  Careless. Called in. Swimming like a dolphin. Like a child. Pulled into the mother waters. Swallowed by the dark-liquid-everything of that mythic sea. With an overwhelming sense of fearless, teary, well-melted, unity.   

A glorious experience to say the least.   

But all of this is really just a prelude. The point of this story is not the glorified midnight swim. It was what  happened – quietly, dreamily – thereafter….and what that means for all of us who call ourselves students of Torah or pursuers of higher truth.

For later that night, finally settling in to sleep, in the misty space-bar between wakefulness and dream, I heard something. With perfect auditory clarity. Heard a voice. 12-inches above my head. It spoke a word I had never heard. It said, “Tehora“.

“Te-ho-raaah. Wonder what that means?” …as I sank into sleep.

The next morning I shared the experience with my breakfast companions to see if anyone could tell me what this mysterious word could mean.

One particularly scholarly friend blinked at me excitedly and launched in, “Tehora!Tehora is the Hebrew word for pure. You’ve heard of a mikveh right? It’s thecornerstone Jewish ritual of purification…through immersion in water. Just like your midnight swim! When a woman comes out of the waters she becomes officially Tehora– Pure.”

“But there’s more.” He gushed on, “I heard a Kabbalistic teaching from Rav Eliyahu, Chief Sephardi Rabbi of the State of Israel, that when a woman takes a mikveh a Bat Kol – literally a Daughter Voice – comes down from heaven. It calls out audibly above her head that her mikveh was kosher. — Seems to me like you just had your own personal Bat Kol!”

Seriously?! There is a Jewish thing called a Daughter Voice that makes heavenly pronouncements? And I got to hear it? And there were zero drugs involved? And this bat kol thing has been blatantly talked about in our sources for millennia? And why didn’t they teach me this in Hebrew School?!

Surely my Red Sea mikveh was as kosher as they come. Okay, I was fully clothed, but I was utterly, mystically, one with that water. My ignorance of the Hebrew language made it all the more undeniable. This must have been the real deal. And wow, if that was so, and if this is what Judaism is about, then sign me up! Because if there was one thing my long-searching soul wanted it was this – vital, undeniable, encounters with something Divine.

If I could experience a bat kol independent of reading about it in a book, then what of all those other Jewish phenomena, Torah tales, prophecies. What if they were all descriptions of actual factual spiritual realities…simply out of our normal mortal reach? My mind flung open to the swirling possibility that there are endless spiritual ACTUALITIES out there just like this bat kol, and that Judaism could teach me, lead me, breed me, to hear them, learn them, live them.

And yet, when I returned to my seminary classes a few days later, all lit up and turned on, there was little mention of such modern-day mystical occurrences. When my teachers talked about ‘the sources’, the mekorot, they were always referring to wordy descriptors cloistered in ancient books. Not robust living realities available NOW.

I had not shlepped myself across the globe for an intellectual tour through the sources…I had come to Israel to immerse in the Source! I had already paid my dues in academia. I was done with talking about it. I wanted, needed, to live it.

Finally I learned I would just need to carve out my own course in pursuit of such mystic experiences. And that is what I have spent the last 15 years doing, with wondrous results, gifted teachers and many a good conversation with what I can only call a breathing and intimate voice of Hashem.

*

Now what does this have to do with you…with all of us?

It seems undeniable that we are deep into some frightening, thrilling, paradigm-shifting, times. Times when a new reality seems to be seeping in, shifting the ground beneath our feet. In such unsettling times  we can no longer be satisfied simply gleaning from the Tree of Knowledge, the Tree of Someone-Else’s-Knowledge. We need to feast on the Tree of Life, the Tree of OUR Life. And spiritual Judaism teaches us how to do just that.

There are hordes of seekers out there simply famished for the mystic teachings stored neatly away on the outskirts of our tradition.  It is possible – I dare say mandatory – that we as a people return to the sources by experiencing the sources first-hand…and by talking about the otherwise secret Jewish sources out-loud.

Enough with Torah-learning relegated to books & surfaces. Our sacred literature gifts us with guidance beyond compare. But let us not confuse the guide book with the journey. Let us not be satisfied studying the map when we could be out there – or rather, in here – exploring the terrain. Let us not educate future generations on the surface of things, but rather let our teachings reach down below the visible audible strata of reality. To the places where bat kols speak.

We have returned to the Land of Israel, to the very soil that sprouts immediate access to Divinity, to vision, to prophecy. It is our task to learn the mystic teachings & to listen intently for the bat kol – the voice of the Divine – in everything; to honor & augment that which we can not plainly hear & see.

*

So for those of you who have lived moments of mystical truths, by all means, pleasetake the time to talk about them – LOUDLY!  These world-shaking experiences need to be upgraded from whispers and wary mysteries to well-articulated realities, shared at our tables, in our seminaries, our families, our Universities. Let the secrets no longer be secreted away. But rather shared and plumbed and pursued doggedly!

And for those of you who have not yet known such first-hand revelations, then please, save your wariness for another day. When you hear others share, listen with curiosity, with awe for the unknown. Perhaps hearing of someone else’s spiritual encounter could be the bat kol intended for your very own ears.

Let us savor each other’s tales of heaven coming home to earth and ear. May these sacred stories be like a bat kol – finally heard and SHARED!

A core theme of Rosh Hashana is CHANGE. The Hebrew word 'Shana' - meaning year - shares it's root with the word 'shinui' - meaning 'change'. We could thus creatively reread Rosh Hashana - the Head of the Year - as the Head that Changes!

Rosh Hashana is all about the mind that changes - the head that turns - it's lessons learned. The yearly celebration of a mind, a life, a world, re-born.

Rosh Hashana is our chance to review who we have been this past year. This is our time to think of how we might want to try on new & improved ways of being, thinking, speaking as we take off into a new year.

This spoken-word poem is a chance to try on a new character. It is to be read in 4 voices - like the 4 Sons of the Passover Seder. Invite 4 participants to play each character.

The characters are:  - The Traditionalist  -  The Revolutionary - The Spiritualist - The Simpleton

Get in to character. Embellishments and dramatizations are welcome. For instance, the Simpleton can be read innocently, like a child, perhaps curious, perhaps clueless. The Spiritualist could be read meditatively. The Traditionalist could add props of religious garb, a kippah, a prayerbook. The Revolutionary, read with fervor!

Feel free to add accents, add costumes. But most importantly, add YOU. Notice if there are aspects of these archetypal characters that you lean towards, or others that you shy away from. For instance, perhaps you're usually a sophisticated thinker. Use this reading to try on being the Simpleton. What does it feel like to look at the world through simple, childlike, eyes? Of if you are far from rebellious, perhaps try on the Revolutionary and see what it brings up for you.

After you have finished the reading discuss what it was like to try on a different character. Go around the table and have each participant speak about what changes they want to welcome in to their new year, what new traits they want to embody, what new lines parts they hope play.

Experiment. Explore. Enjoy!
(Please note this piece was written for the Schusterman Foundation's excellent RH Haggadah)
*

 The Simpleton: Rosh Hashana is apples and honey. 
Is new shoes & hair combed-through. 
Is candle-light & distant cousins. 
Is something NEW.

The Traditionalist: Rosh Hashana is apples dipped in holy, 
not just honey...
Is as OLD as the universe. 
Is the Book of Life. 
Is a stacks of prayers 
Read verse by sublime verse.

The Spiritualist: Rosh Hashana is the FIRST of all firsts. 
The first inceptive in-breathe of the Divine 
beyond words, beyond appearances, 
where we touch beyond time
just in time....to realign...

The Revolutionary: Because G!d knows it's about time
that we realigned!
And realized our immense and overwhelming need for CHANGE! 
Rosh Hashana is a nuclear reactor 
of getting our proverbial act together. 
Righting our wrongs. 
Making the world better...and better....and better.

The Simpleton: 
And so we change our clothes...our calendars...our lines. 

The Revolutionary: 
Forget the facades, just so long as you change your MIND!
Take your old bottled-up self & learn to Recycle, Reform, Refine!

The Spiritual: And speaking of refined...
Let us not forget to pause, to pursue our insides
so much more than our very many outs...
Let us pray, chant & meditate...
That we may have no need to shout...

The Traditionalist: For the only thing shouting 
will be the ram's horn
as our prayers form 
a tidal wave that hits the very shore 
of what we can only call heaven...
- else what's a heaven for?!

The Revolutionary: Though perhaps heaven also needs a few reforms? 
Especially this year...haven't we counted far too many days of war?
Perhaps heaven has given us a bit too much to mourn?

The Simpleton: I've seen the loss of children, of soldiers, of parent, of friends.

The Spiritualist: The shocking slaughter of justice, of safety, of innocence.

The Traditionalist: We stand here humbled & gawking at the state of the world.
We've seen her horrors and sorrows - haunting and absurd.
When, dear God, will the shofar of real redemption be heard?

The Revolutionary: Sometimes longing for something better is the best that we've got...

The Spiritualist: And sometimes, she who is rich is she who is happy with her lot.

The Simpleton: So we know that we have lost - a lot...but what have we gained? 

The Spiritualist: A deepened connection ...

The Traditionalist: A higher direction...

The Revolutionary: A heightened push for change! 

The Spiritual: So let us breath and stretch, 
& strain our necks 
into this next horizon of a year 
keeping our eyes on the prize of ideals we hold dear.

Revolutionary: Lofty ideals of peace in the face of violence 
justice in the face of crime. 

Traditionalist: Turn our eyes from greed to giving. 
Open our hands, our hearts, our minds.

Spiritualist: And this day will be our haven 
Revolutionary: --- and our engine
Simpleton: --- our sense of connection 
Traditionalist: --- to Tradition
Spirituality: --- And inspiration
Revolutionary: Vive la revolution!
Spiritualist: -- A celebration 
Simpleton: -- of apples
Traditionalist: -- dipped in holy
Revolutionary: --- with grit & determination
Traditionalist: - with prayers and prostrations
Simpleton: - with family, with friends
Spiritualist: - and spiritual elation

ALL TOGETHER: 
As we raise a L'Chaim to our differences
and the Oneness that made us!
Bless each other with a year of
sweet, 
holy, 
& inspiring 
CHANGES!

I'm sitting here shocked that the sun rose today. Going about my automatic daily tasks...all the while, framed with a backdrop of uneasy angry grief over the kidnapping of these 3. Our boys. Fluctuating between prayerfulness & anguish...disturbed and stirred. With little left to do but give word.... 

*
Days like today I am weary of preaching peace
no more talk about forgiveness
I only want vengeance
for these innocent
stolen treasures.

I am deeply triggered
for my people...
post traumatic stress disorder-ed
from Hitler to Hamas
no end to the horrors. 

We are the haunted, the hunted 
sons and daughters of prophets
the parents of soldiers
and students abducted
 -- for no fault of their own...
Dear Lord bring them home...
Unscathed unstoned - 
bring them home...

Guard them, guide them 
let their captors stumble like blind men
that we might find them
lift them 
safely gently seamlessly 
as the streams of prayers
flow endlessly 
from our mouths
as we learn your Torah
as we walk your streets 
and weep with every eye we meet.
 
Reminded that we are bound together in this 
endeavor of care and prayer... 
wasted and weathered 
with despair
*
What else can we do? 
I don't know... 
Write a poem?
Rip your clothes?
Go to the Kotel? 
Pray it's gonna end well...
Let your voices swell...

For we are the disturbed the greatly stirred. 
Let us - at the very least - 
give word.... 
Let's be forces of friendship 
of godliness, of justice
with a breathless wish for 
the end to this horror flick. 

Return our sons  
they're only kids...
Return our sons
they're only kids...

It's always amazing to walk through Jerusalem's streets and see everyone knee-deep in dirt flanked with cleaning detergent & blowtorches. All of us sweating our way through this communal ritual of Pesach house-cleaning.  It’s no mistake that we start out our freedom march by house-cleaning. Because all great social revolutions really start in the home.  

The sages tell us that it was in the merit of the women that the Hebrews were redeemed from Egypt. Just look at the first women who appear in the Exodus story - Shifra and Puah, the plucky midwives who refused to follow Pharoah’s murderous decree of slaughtering newborns. They are also understood to be Miriam and Tzipora, the mother and sister who nurtured Moses, the world's greatest social agitator.  

The Midrash Hagadol shares a story that succinctly & symbolically captures the grandeur of these ladies. It tells how Pharoah sent guards to capture these delinquent midwives. They chase them through thee streets and the women slip into one of the houses. God saves them from the guards by turning them into the very beams of a house. The guards search the house to no avail, they’re not there…or rather they are so very there, so part of the house, that they can not be seen. They have become embedded in the house itself. They are the beams, the fortifying forces that uphold the entire structure. These women literally come to embody the home and all that it symbolizes – family, relationship, communication, internality.

They are the ones bringing redemption….and they do it from within! From the home. For our homes are the internal spheres from which we impact the outer world. These internally-oriented midwives are called upon by Pharoah himself to become players in the external arena of power and politics. They rise to the task and become social activists on the national scene. They are the abolitionists that enable the redemption of an entire people and the righting of a massive social wrong.

As Rabbi Jonathan Sachs points out so eloquently, these women are “the first recorded instance of civil disobedience...(setting a precedent) that would eventually become the basis for the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Shifra and Puah, by refusing to obey an immoral order, redefined the moral imagination of the world.” Histories proud line of social activists and conscientious objectors can trace their source back to these righteous midwives stand against the powers that be. 

And it all started in the home.  Their activism is their becoming the beams of a house. As a therapist I can't help but view these ladies as the archetypal leaders of RELATIONAL REDEMPTION. They knew how to speak, how to hold together a family. They say that Puah was named so because she knew how to say "Pu, Pu" and quiet the cries of babes. These women knew how to communicate, how to quiet and hold and care for others. So it makes perfect sense that our freedom march begins by cleaning our kitchens with a vengeance…cleansing our homes and relationships are the first steps on the treck to ultimate freedom!

So here’s a little spokenword call out in Puah’s names. A call for redefining what it means to agitate for social justice in more internal terms.  Not so much taking to the streets, as taking to the kitchen sink. Puah proves that all great historical battles for justice have their locus in the living room.

Puah’s Protest

Like freedom fighters - who pray with their feet
I protest for inner-peace.

My freedom fighting is not political
(that task is for a hardier class of Jewish girl).
For me - the Egyptian fiend is personal. 
 
For the Pharoahs I dethrone 
rule the halls of each of our homes.
In the inner-alcoves of a private despair 
that petrifies the children and paralyzes the parents
- that shackles our finest hours of commitment & contentment

I prefer to pedal wares of wars-well-avoided 
where everyone wins through carefully worded 
apologies between friends.

For cowering beneath the pyramids of needs 
– my fiends 
are the inner-menaces of 'insecurities'

The tears of teens and toddlers
and all-too-common-household-hollers 
that oppress our most precious commodity -- of family.

My enemies crouch quietly beneath 
the crumbs on the carpet
- a beast between the sheets 
of a cold-shouldered bedroom
where partners sleep unconscious 
and deeply out of tune
with the exquisite symphony 
of their common dreams.

What we need – are a hundred-thousand 
Moseses of RELATIONAL REDEMPTION
who will stand strong in the face 
of a sink-full of grimy resentments.

And so I call forth all fellow freedom fighters 
for inner-peace 
toting infants, touting Torahs, holding pens..
All prayer-footed-protesters Come & Herald in 
emotional freedom from the Pharonic foe
and let us birth our children 
into peaceable homes.

For when our homes enshrine tranquility
then outer-world will follow inner-lead
and rock-hard hearts will soften grips
and all that's enslaved will lithely slip
into the soft of freedom found
and take off your shoes to walk around
for here - in our homes - is the hallowed ground
from which God speaks

Your very oven is the burning bush 
– Hear its call! - Feel its heat! 
Agitate for inner-freedom…
Clean your house, cleanse your speech
and then will you begin to truly 
pray with your feet…

*
To get some “relational redemption” check out the Shalev Center’s group-work and couple’s seminars! www.shalevcenter.org
Learn how to communicate & commune…with others, with G!d, with yourself
CircleWorks Group starts April 22nd
Couple’s seminar starts May 1st

Peace Accords of the Hospital Ward

Do you remember me my Arab sister
6am frantic panicked 
at the hospital in the heart of Jerusalem?

We brushed arms as we rushed our girls along
that sickening maze of hallways

for twin bronchoscopies 
for our 2 year old princesses

yours had swallowed a bottle cap
and mine had such couching fits 
she could hardly breathe

both of them fussy & 
fasting from the night before
yet they played together seamlessly, dreamily 
on that sterile floor

with their small armies of figurines
enacting scenes 
of war and wonder 
in the hospital ward
and I wondered 
what you thought of their 'imaginary' games

as I handed out crackers and raisins
like peace offerings
to you, my distant cousin
both of so sullen, so estranged 

and yet we wept in unison 
when the nurses came to escort
our angels away...down that endless hallway

put them to sleep one after the other 
with tiny matching gas masks
saw them lay limp & unconscious 
on that cold steel slab. 

Remember how you and I sat 
outside the locked metal door
on the blue plastic chairs
- broken, sunken, scared

Perfect strangers
...strong as sisters
...tight as thieves

praying to our respective Gods
the same exact pleas - 
for holding healing relief

*

And that hallway was morphed into 
a make-shift mosque
a sudden synagogue
and we were the choir wailing 
in a harmony 
of mother's agony

weeping up something holy
right there in the beit holim

out of our minds 
with the pining 
only known by parents
in cold plastic hospital seats

*
And I want you to know
that You were my family that day.

Your presence was my haven  
I took refuge in your gaze
Soothed by the fact that there in the hospital 
we could never be enemies

because we were too busy 
battling shared adversaries
of weary, worry 
waste and weakness 

all we had between us
was our sameness
our sadness
our senseless 
vulnerability.
 
Both of us bowed deep  - bent knee
to that same divine  
Mender of disease.

*
And remember 
that luminous moment when 
our prayers were answers 
with the eloquence 
of the slowly opening eyelids of our children

and we were elated
& related in shared relief

and you know what
I want to share that ecstatic sentiment with you again 
- my cousin, my sister, my friend...
  
I want to see a day 
when both of our families 
will be massively relieved 
at the end of this surgery
- this treacherous surgery - 
known as the conflict in the Middle East.

For make no mistake 
this conflict is our common enemy 
both of us suffer from this noxious & contagious 
communicable disease

*
So sweet sister, please
let us be focused
& bound by one purpose 
the love of kindness 
the work of healing
the care for innocence
& children and all that is decent

For my call to arms is not a call to harm
but a call to these holding limbs of hope 
that our children might 
live in a home 
a little more whole 
a little more holy 
with a lot less hating
and a lot more embracing

where we see no more 
terror over territory 
shed not blood
but rather tears 
of rejoicing 
over our shared recovery 
from this rank disease.

*
For the Messianic era 
may or may not be at hand
but it might just be in our hands
- that we may outstretch them
to hold each other in our hours of direst need
 - just like you did for me....

And here in this hospital  
we will broker a lasting peace.

Not by politicians in parliaments
but by parents in blue plastic hospital seats. 

Sharing crackers and raisins
and Messianic visions.

And this will be the Peace Accords
of the Hospital Ward;
a place so ironically, iconically
more hospitable to peace

So may it be...

Here's to the day when sisters danced in vineyard circles wearing each other's finest white dresses. The day when matches were made and the tribes were allowed to intermarry, when Binyamin was forgiven for some serious sins, when those destined to die in the desert realized they could step outa their graves and LIVE!......Happiest Tu B'Av tu Alll!

Tu B'Av

When the month of the father
meets the moon of the mothers
and their merger 
makes for circles
in vineyards
of lovers

When ancient consciousness 
is called back in
to its rightful bliss
as the most joyous
of all days 

Then we will begin 
to wake from our graves
to inter-marry the tribes
to forgive the unforgivable 
And share our most enviable 

To dance unembarrassed
and share our abundance
and point incredulous
at the Divine Presence
that dances among us.