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  There are many ways to experience these times that make up our lives today. There is the approach of the monk figuratively sitting on the mountaintop meditating (tempting at times), or shielding ourselves from bad influences, especially necessary to a large extent for our... Read More →

  Camp has ended but it is only the beginning of the impact it has had on those whose lives it touched. This coming Shabbat some camp leaders will be sharing this year’s highlights with our Ruach community, so I don’t want to give too much away in this writing. I’ll try to... Read More →

  Week 2 of Camp Or L’Dor. Words can’t describe the blessings, challenges, new experiences, complex interactions, hurdles, victories, above all, the presence of HaShem. These two weeks in a way represent a microcosm of life’s joys and sorrows, yet with Yeshua at the center,... Read More →

  Given the state of our day-to-day lives, especially within such a divided American society, we often can feel that this is the worst time ever of mankind’s history. Despite the tragedies we read about in history, we find it difficult to believe that any peoples or... Read More →

    It seems that each week we just can’t escape more news that drives our society apart. We go from war to gun violence to legislation and opinions to hearings and more opinions that divide us rather than bring us together. We surely are living in chaotic times.  ... Read More →

  Rabbi Nathan’s sermon last week shared the wisdom of how God sees us. His point was that we often don’t know who we are because we don’t know whose we are. There so often is a disconnect between our life experiences and what our Abba sees for He sees our true selves, and... Read More →

  So often those who doubt the truth of Yeshua and often even the existence of God will dismiss such beliefs as emotional outworkings not based on facts, but rather, on our own fears of immortality, or overactive imaginations. Karl Marx summed up this view with these word... Read More →

  Our home in Maine is near Bath. On June 4th a very historic celebration was held there – the christening and launch of the Virginia, a reconstruction of the first English-made oceangoing ship built in the Americas, originally built in 1607. Bath even today is one of the... Read More →

  Last week we tried to process the horror of mass shootings, not from the perspective of opinions on gun control, but rather, from the perspective of becoming the created beings HaShem intended us to be. Mass shootings are still with us and will be until major changes... Read More →

  I surely never thought as I shared about the Buffalo supermarket shooting last week that there would yet again be another episode in our lives of such trauma, let alone at an elementary school involving our most vulnerable population – children. This is not a conversation... Read More →

  It’s been hard not to think about the shootings at the Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo. Ten innocent lives lost, more injured, countless lives, including ours, forever changed. Our collective memories recall names like Oklahoma City, Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, Tel Aviv, drops... Read More →

  As some of you may know, Sid and I have spent the last four months in Florida. Although our time there has truly been blessed and fruitful, we are so happy to be back to New England. We’ve landed in Westford for a week at sister Wendy’s home and plan to make it all the way... Read More →

  Oy, my bobbe/grandma would talk about the tsuris/trouble in the world. And she certainly had a life of tsuris, watching her cousins killed by the Cossacks during the pogroms in Russia, losing everything, living in poverty, fleeing to America as a child, later to start her... Read More →

  Last week we explored the necessity for relationships in order for each of us, and mankind, to grow closer to whom we were created to be. We actually considered that the more adverse the relationship, the more we need each other for the opportunity to grow. The harder it... Read More →

  As I listened on my jog this morning to the MIM class video describing this week’s readings, I was struck with an insight that brought so many diverse topics together. Rabbi Nathan first referenced certain portions of Rabbi Dr. Mark Kinzer’s book Post-Missionary Messianic... Read More →

  I love when Passover and Easter line up. Although I know it is not exact, this year’s first night seder falls a couple days before Easter just as Yeshua’s last supper and his resurrection were within days of each other, the holy timing helping to bring us into... Read More →

  We try not to think of what is happening in the Ukraine, but we can’t help ourselves. It is in our consciousness, and in our subconscious as well. We feel an overwhelming, underlying sense of sadness for those suffering. We fight to not think about it, for if we did so as... Read More →

  The recent Oscar ceremony provided a vignette representative of so many of the feelings swirling in these days of unusual influences, skewed values, and raw emotions. The events were a vivid reminder of the slippery slope we walk each day trying to act in a godly way... Read More →

  In previous Shabbat encouragements we have pondered the reality of the tension we live in between joy and sorrow in this world, trying to understand the how and why, concluding this is the way of mankind’s life in this realm. As the weeks of battle in the Ukraine have... Read More →

  Participating in the Maturing in Messiah (MIM) class has brought so much richness to my life – new practices, new perspectives, new interactions in existing relationships, new knowledge about my faith, and more. The havruta method of such life learning with another member... Read More →

  The past couple weeks have been extremely happy times personally. A very hard comment to make since every day I am watching the developments in the Ukraine which are so heartbreaking and inscrutable. Yet we acknowledge that in this life we often live in the tension between... Read More →

  During my morning Shachrit recently, I ran across a fascinating footnote in my siddur on the subject of the Shema:   “ ’The Lord is One’: among the many meanings of this phrase are: (1) there is only one God; (2) God is a unity, indivisible; (3) God is the only... Read More →

  Some of you know my mantra is “Conversation leads to understanding”, a phrase shared with me by the Camp Director at Surprise Lake Camp in 2010, the first year SLC hosted our Camp Or L’Dor. Since then I’ve let that wisdom guide my interactions with others and find it is a... Read More →

  As you know, I typically send out a little Shabbat encouragement on Thursday evenings. This week was exceptionally busy, so that didn’t happen. Today, however, I finally had time for my jog time with HaShem, but instead of listening to my usual Messianic Jewish music... Read More →

Recently, the world observed International Holocaust Day. Straying from my usual format and inspired by one of the coverages in particular, I wanted to share the following video: So much can be said. So many take-aways. The mere fact that Lily Ebert, a 97 year old Auschwitz... Read More →

My morning jog with HaShem again did not disappoint. . . As I jogged around our community here in Florida today I thought about the history of this small island. Although Nettles Island is on the east coast where more East Coast residents tend to winter, this particular area by... Read More →

This week I attended a memorial service for Jason Dobbs-Hyer. I didn’t know him very well but remembered from the short interchanges we had what a special person he was. I knew of him really more through Sid since the two of them shared a love of cycling which they would discuss... Read More →

Sid and I are here in Florida for this season. It’s hard to believe we’ve been coming to Florida for the last eight winters, the first several times just passing through or staying for a short time, the last several actually living down here for a number of months. Doing so has... Read More →

As this new year begins, we are once again given an opportunity to start anew, set new goals, look back and move forward to be the person HaShem has created us to be. We are given yet another time to become energized to live life moving closer to walking with Him, a time to... Read More →

Do you ever just walk around your house or outdoors and become overwhelmed by God’s blessings? Not all the time (as we probably should), but just now and then when you just can’t help yourself? So it was this morning. I woke up at our home in Maine. Granted, we’re only here for... Read More →