Not Doing Teshuva this Year
Yoni’s kindergarten teacher sent out an exercise video she’d made for our boys to use during lockdown. I told Yoni: “The ganenet sent you exercises to do! How fun!” as I handed him my phone. But instead of doing the exercises himself, a few minutes later I found Yoni lying down flat on the sofa, […]
Read MoreCOVID COVID Rosh Hashana
This Rosh Hashana, praying behind a mask in a tiny, socially-distanced minyan in my daughter’s schoolyard, it was so eminently clear to me. God runs everything! If He so desires, He can bring down human society as we know knew it with a virus so small that 100 million could fit on a single pinhead. […]
Read MoreWrite Your Way Home
I’m a huge fan of Yocheved Rottenberg’s therapeutic writing classes, of which I’ve taken several over the last 2 years. When I’m feeling upset or confused or down then her innovative writing techniques help me get to the root of what’s bothering me. As Yocheved puts it “Therapeutic writing can be your best therapist.” I […]
Read MoreThe Widow Who Blamed Herself for her Husband’s Death (3-Minute Rabbi Fischel Schachter Story)
This past Thursday, I ran around for hours, taking care of my kids who are home because of Israel’s nationwide lockdown, and serving as personal waitress to my 10-year-old daughter who is quarantined in her room because her classmate has COVID. And trying to finalize our Rosh Hashana menu and shopping list and sort through […]
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I Didn’t Talk for 19 Hours, and then I Wrote this Poem
Today is the 25th of Elul, the birthday of the world. But just as importantly (for Rabbi Nivin students like me at least) the 25th of Elul is the due date for my annual Elul plan, the blueprint for the year that every Rabbi Nivin student prepares every year before Rosh Hashana. For the last […]
Read More9 Tips to Achieving Joy
Imagine if you lived a hundred and fifty years ago in a wooden cottage surrounded by frozen mud in Northern Galicia…Chances are you and your children go to bed hungry every night. Chances are you have lost a child or children in infancy or childbirth. Chances are you won’t live past the age of 50. […]
Read More4 Steps to a Meaningful Spiritual Accounting this Elul
I heard these steps from Rebbetzin Heller-Gottlieb (featured on the Rise! into your Crown World Summit for Women) and I’m feeling so excited to try it out this approach to Cheshbon Nefesh year. I even already bought myself a pretty notebook to tally up my points! 1. What you were thinking and feeling when you […]
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