Nina Amir's Thoughts on Human Potential, Personal Growth and Practical Spirituality
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 [...]
Have you ever had a time in your life when something just felt like a struggle? You thought you were on the right path, but obstacles just kept rising up in front of you and causing you to question if you were doing the right thing? I had a time like this just this past [...]
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 [...]
My Jewish renewal community has a traditional of doing group aliyot. In other words, instead of calling up one person to say the blessing before and after the Torah reading, they create a theme around the parshah, the Torah portion being read, and call up anyone that feels drawn to that theme to say the [...]
Do you think your prayers fall on deaf ears? Do you pray and pray and pray, all the while thinking that no one hears your words? Do you look around and see that nothing changes despite your prayers? Do you wonder why you can’t hear God responding to your requests? Today, get really quiet. Listen [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
As my daughter left this morning to attend Easter Sunday services with her non-Jewish boyfriend, I thought about what she might take away from that service. I know she won’t be thinking about Easter from a personal growth standpoint as I do. And, despite my own Jewish leanings and upbringing, as always, I look at [...]
As I was preparing for my monthly podcast on Conversations with Mrs. Claus (www.thefamilyyak.com), I was going over my subject – Passover, which is fast approaching, and thinking about ways to talk about this Jewish holiday so that people of all faiths and spiritual backgrounds would find the podcast interesting. I realized that in the story [...]
Last week when I was in Westport, CT, speaking about how to move through fear, I said that we all have to realize that its a miracle that we exist day to day on what Rebbe Nachman of Breslov called the “very narrow bridge.” That bridge represents our lives. Every day we walk on that [...]
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