Lech Lecha, Genesis 12-17:27
The opening scripture of this week’s Torah portion Lech Lecha, “Go forth from your native land, from your kindred, and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” (Gen. 12:1) has a number of different translations and meanings. In the literal translation of the text, God calls Abram (this takes place before his name is changed to […]
Sefer Assiyah
The Book of Making
September 2017
Recently, on an extraordinarily mild and sunny day in Chicagoland, I went to a nature center with my son and grandson. We peered and searched through aquariums, terrariums and pools of water — home to local critters. We spent a lot of time with the turtles – who knew they were such adept communicators when stressed out with their […]
Rabbi Goldhamer can you teach us more about the month of Elul? You have referred to this month as the most powerfully charged spiritual month of the Hebrew calendar.
Elul began on August 23rd this year. The Mishnah B’rura (a “clear” or simple version of the Jewish law book Shulchan Aruck) states that Song of Songs 6:3 is, according to the Rabbis, the most important […]
This week we begin to read the first and only book of the Chumash that it is written in first person. Moses had so surrendered his ego to the Divine that his words were also God’s words, explain the commentators of this week’s parsha Devarim.
“Moses’ utter identification with the divine wisdom empowers our own lesser souls, each of which possesses ‘a spark of the […]
By Rabbi Dr. Douglas Goldhamer
Alef Meditation #2
SO THAT WE ARE A CHANNEL THROUGH WHICH THE ENERGY OF DIVINITY AND HUMANITY FLOW IN BALANCE.
How to Identify the Inner I with the Greater I
A meditation taught by Rabbi Dr. Douglas Goldhamer from Healing With God’s Love.
Find a comfortable place and use this room, or part of this room, as your holy sanctuary. You should meditate in the same room every day, as then you will increase the energy in that place. The ancient Kabbalists call such a special […]
This month I interviewed Hebrew Seminary faculty member Rabbi Cantor Rob Jury.
Since your May 2012 ordination from Hebrew Seminary, your career has taken two paths – Rabbi of Anshe Tikvah in Wheeling and Staff Chaplain at Advocate’s Addiction Treatment Program. Can you tell us how one led to the other and how your Hebrew Seminary education prepared you?
I see them as one single path […]
By Hebrew Seminary President Rabbi Dr. Douglas Goldhamer
When I was ordained as a rabbi in 1972, there was one person who had more influence on me than any other human being. It wasn’t my wife. I wasn’t married yet. It wasn’t my mother. She was living in Canada. It wasn’t God. It wasn’t any rabbi. The person who had the most influence on my […]
From the Pen of Executive Director Alison C. Brown
Parsha Tezaveh discusses the materials and steps necessary to perform service to God in the Sanctuary. As a metaphor, “Achieving any form of spiritual growth requires sustained effort and daily rituals.” [1] We call this avodah, service. Our intentional efforts and rituals create a space, a groove, carved into our life through practice that allows a […]
By Hebrew Seminary President Rabbi Dr. Douglas Goldhamer
Our Torah portion this week, called Mishpatim, identifies the theory of reincarnation in many of our Judaisms. Our Torah portion begins, “These are the judgments that you shall place before them. “ According to the Kabbalah, and the Divine Rabbi who wrote the ZOHAR , Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, this verse means “This is the order of […]
