Nina Amir's Thoughts on Human Potential, Personal Growth and Practical Spirituality
I’ve written about fear a lot, however, when a magnitude 8.8 earthquake hits somewhere in the world, in this case in Chile, it brings up some fear in me. You see, I live in California. My home sits between two fault lines. The earthquake in Haiti brought up some fear, too. So do the little [...]
Sometimes you just have to go with the flow. This has nothing to do with Judaism or any particular religion. However, I think that almost every spiritual or religious tradition has a teaching about being led by God or feeling guided. I think being in the flow is a bit like feeling God’s hand pushing [...]
It’s a Jewish tradition when someone dies to say, “May his or her memory be for blessing.” The actual honorific is “of blessed memory,” a translation of the Hebrew “zikhrono livrakha” (m.) or “zikhronah livrakha” (f.). It’s an odd type of statement really. I tend to say, “May his or her memory be a blessing.” [...]
Purim is almost here. (For those of my readers who aren’t Jewish, you can read the story of Purim here.) This holiday always makes me wonder why I find myself in an given place at any given moment. If Queen Esther found herself in that castle at just the right time to save the Jews, [...]
It’s so easy to let the changes of modern day life eat away at tradition. Change happens, it seems, whether we like it or not. More often than not, however, we allow it to happen. I had reason last night to consider this. My family went to see Fiddler on the Roof with Harvey Fierstein. I’ve seen [...]
Like many people around the world, I’ve been watching the Winter Olympics. I’ve been struck by the skaters in particular, who have had a number of falls. It’s easy to sit back in my living room chair and criticize them for making mistakes and “blowing their big opportunity,” but I know how hard it is [...]
Have you ever felt like you’ve been trying your hardest to do the “right thing” or to perform a “mitzvah” (good deed), but you sense that something just isn’t right? Have you ever been focused on doing good but found that something about your actions felt so wrong? Maybe you weren’t fulfilling your soul’s purpose. [...]
Today I’ve been mulling over creation and how the world we live in continues to exist. A fellow Examiner columnist had written an article about how scientists believe the world could be a holographic image. In other words, they believe we live in a gigantic image created by a laser. So, I wrote a column [...]
I think of myself as a pretty grateful person. Most of the people I know consider me someone fairly focused upon gratitude. So, imagine my dismay when a friend called me onto the carpet for being…well…ungrateful. Ack! I was horrified. How could that be, I wondered? It seemed that I hadn’t said I was grateful [...]
As I watched the Super Bowl half-time show I considered whether or not Roger Daltrey and The Who weren’t singing to people all over the United States and asking them an extremely important question: Who are you? Now I’m not a big Who fan. (I’m also not a football fan, but my son and husband [...]
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