Do You Believe In Miracles?

Menorah or chanukiah with candles glowing.

“Tis the season of miracles–if you are Jewish. And I am. Last night we lit the first Chanukah candles. As they flickered and shone, I thought about the miracles in my life and how miracles are created. The story of Chanukah is about miracles…large army defeated by a small one, small jug of oil that [...]

How to Create 8 Days of Miracles

Menorah dreamstimefree_353956

Chanukah celebrates miracles–the miracle of a small army defeating a large one, of a small jug of oil that should only have burned for one day lasting eight days instead. This year Chanukah and Christmas fall during the same week. Christmas is about miracles,too–the miraculous birth of Jesus. It doesn’t really matter if you believe [...]

An Exercise to Help Give Soulful Gifts

During the season of gift giving, it’s easy to get caught up in the commercialism of the holidays. However, you can make the season meaning-full and spirit-full by giving gifts that come from your heart as well as from your soul. Most people find it easy to give heart-centered gifts. By simply thinking about the [...]

Focus on Hope, Faith, Giving, and Miracles

The winter holiday season offers us a wonderful time to focus on hope, faith and miracles. Chanukah revolves around the idea of miracles—a small band of Jews fought against a large army while trying to preserve their religious freedom and won. They had hope and faith and a miracle occurred. Plus, during the rededication of [...]

On Hanukkah Give the Gift of Support for "Different" Teens

Tonight marks the first night of Hanukkah. My daughter is in New York in college this year. My son and I will be alone; my husband just left on a business trip. We just got back from a trip ourselves and with Hanukkah falling in the middle of the week and no preparation made or [...]

On the Eight Night of Chanukah the Miraculous Becomes Evident

I couldn’t let the last night of Chanukah pass without posting some sort of teaching. (I know I already posted a blog today…) I knew I had read something somewhere about the importance of the eight night, and then I remembered! My friend Rabbi David Zaslow posted this on Facebook: The symbol for 8 is [...]

Chanukah Light Helps Us See Miracles

The Kabbalists talk a great deal about the “light.” Through our actions we draw this Divine light into the world, thereby, increasing the light—or we push the light away, cover it up, and diminish its presence. In the Zohar, the mystical text of Kabbalah, there is a teaching that says that everything is new when [...]

Shine Your Own Light This Chanukah

As we get ready to light the first candle on the chanukiah, marking the first night of Chanukah, I want to remind everyone that afterwards we are supposed to place it in the window to shine its light outward into the world. This is a way of reminding the world of the possibility of miracles [...]

Getting in the Chanukah Spirit

For most Jews, it feels difficult to get into the Chanukah spirit when the whole world seem so intent on getting into the Christmas spirit. Everywhere you turn, you see Christmas decorations, sales, lights, articles, candy… It’s almost impossible to walk into a store, doctor’s office or non-Jewish friend’s house without hearing Christmas music, not [...]

For Chanukah: The Kabbalah of Candle Light

The story of Chanukah revolves around two main points:  The success of a small Jewish army over a large Assyrian one in a fight for religious freedom or, maybe more accurately, against assimilation and the miracle of the sole jar of oil found in the temple that burned not for one day in as expected [...]