Kabbalistic Meditation Since the Middle Ages the cosmic tree of life with its ten spheres, or divine attributes, has been the central image of kabbalistic meditation. Though some masters adapted the “seven heavens” of the first century Merkabah mystics, equating them with the seven lower branches of the tree, most Kabbalists focused their attention on

The Traditions of Passover by David Jaffe, author of Changing the World from the Inside Out The Passover prayer book, or Haggadah, that my family used when I was growing was in English, Hebrew, and transliteration of the Hebrew. The story told is that when I was nine years old, I cut out strips of

by David Jaffe The Jewish calendar, like all religious systems, has particular ways of marking spiritual time. A weekly sabbath beckons us to stop, prayers for the new lunar month remind us of the constant opportunity for renewal, and the High Holy Days bring us face-to-face with our own mortality. These days are spiritual opportunities

A Jewish Mother in Shangri-la by Rosie Rosenzweig An old joke tells of a Jewish woman who treks to the Himalayas to seek an audience with a guru sitting in seclusion on a mountaintop. When at last she comes before him, she implores: "Sheldon, come home!" Rosie Rosenzweig was that Jewish mother-but in real life,