Shabbat Inspiration with Diane

Sid and I were blessed last week to attend the UMJC summer conference which is the first time it has been held since 2019 due to Covid. It was an amazing experience not only to finally be able to get together after so much time had passed, but the long time coming brought with it a much more intense experience than it had been in previous years.   This get together is always a unique opportunity for Messianic Jews from across the states, and even from other countries as well, to learn from each other, develop new ideas, literally grow our movement, as well as provide deep fellowship. The lack of this interchange for so long enabled this years’ conferees to draw even closer as we... Read More →

  This Shabbat encouragement is dedicated to Jerry Holbert, a blessed memory, who left our earthly home this week, a man of great love of others who knew how to bring fun, joy, humor, and love to us all, much like Lee Urban, the man who also inspired this message. —————   This spring I fell in love with a bike I saw in our community in Florida. It’s a Margaritaville Cruiser which comes complete with island motif and a parrot horn, not to mention a basket that could accommodate our fur baby Sofie. Yet as my birthday in April approached the bike was completely unavailable in the various stores where advertised and also unavailable on EBay.   So... Read More →

  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 children’s sake, or trying to understand without personally experiencing the mindsets and approaches we find distasteful and ungodly.   When it comes to movie and TV choices, I’m pretty predictable. I enjoy non-violent dramas or comedies, preferably period pieces, and bio-flicks, all of the above, if possible, with redemptive themes. So a few years back when a number of my family members and friends were... 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 stick with vignettes that will not be spoilers.   Every summer we are always in awe of our campers’ positive attitudes toward prayer and study and their respect for Scripture and Torah. This special nature of our campers has even been commented upon by camp leaders at the Jewish camps where we have been located in prior years. Our teens are surrounded by the same influences as all teens, including the... 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, all is made right, even in this world, our not having to wait for the World to Come to handle life’s challenges. So many plans have gone so smoothly, and when tough questions have arisen, good decisions have been made. All of the campers and counselors arrived safely and on time from the overnight adventure trip, all reporting what a great experience it was. Baruch HaShem!   In the early years of camp, Sid... 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 generations before ours could possibly have had it so hard. This is often also our mindset when we experience personal tragedies, health challenges, death of a loved one, as we may think no one else could possibly suffer as much as we are suffering.   It is possible these are “those times” when all will end as we know it and we will be with our Creator. I surely can’t say. It definitely has felt like that at times.... 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.   If that isn’t bad enough, so many of us are dealing with seemingly inexplicable personal tragedies. I have the ability to share mine with you at times and from the responses I get, I know it’s as if I’m in the head and hearts of so many of you with similar situations. Just when it seems things can’t get worse personally, they do, with an inexplicable illness or death of a loved one.   It is natural in... 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 yet we often suffer.   If I am so beautiful, why am I bullied? Why do others dislike me? Why do I hate the way I look? Why do I fail at so many things? Why do I have to struggle to pay my bills? Why am I not good enough to get that promotion? Why do my kids misbehave? Why do others have so much and I have so little? The list seems endless at times. . .   There actually is no list at all. Rather, we... 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 words: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”   Marx’s descriptions are perhaps not far from how some of our days may feel, especially given the incredibly trying stories in our daily news. We know there are scores of examples of good as well that are happening simultaneously, and yet, the grand scale,... 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 few cities whose main industry still is shipbuilding.   The day was bursting with celebration with thousands attending the ceremony, distinguished speakers including famous storytellers and politicians, a street fair, musical performances, historical reenactments, craft vendors, the works. I had already crossed the day’s events off of my list since Sid and I had instead planned to attend Chaim’s bar mitzvah... 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 occur. This week, I want to focus on the deeper message we touched on last week – love one another even above one’s own opinions when doing so is for the greater good, not only of our fellow man, but also, in order to walk closer with HaShem.   Fourteen (!! How can it be??) years ago Sid and I bought a Winnebago, affectionately called the Pugabego since a motivation was to be able to travel and not leave... 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 about legislation, mental health, personal freedoms, public policy, politics. This is a conversation about who we are, who’ve we become, who we want to be, and who we can be.   Most likely our earliest ancestors were wired to accept violence as part of daily existence. After all, even if vegan or vegetarian, they would have had to defend themselves from predators and sometimes each other, also to kill to... 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 in the bucket of an ever growing list. . .   Below is the Shabbat encouragement I sent out in November 2018 after the Tree of Life synagogue shootings. Although the place is different and has its nuances, fear and hate of the other is the same motive for the Buffalo shootings. Such hatred finds multiple groups to hate, applies differing rationale, and is non-discriminating as to the individual targets, but... 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 back to our home in Maine next week.   On our way back from Florida we planned a little side trip to Nashville to catch a show but were also hoping to add two more state stickers to our RV map of states we had traveled – West Virginia and Kentucky. To do that we actually had to go a little out of our way but decided it would be worth it since it’s such a long drive anyway, a little further wouldn’t matter.... 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 family here, blessedly living with our family until her death in 1981. She and my mom’s speaking Yiddish as the household language was the blessing bestowed on us children who then could learn it, as well as her apple strudel. 😊   It seems wherever we turn, tsuris is part of our daily lives. We all know there are seasons when it seems that things aren’t going our way. The word “seasons” connotes the varying... 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 is to love another, the more we develop our Mussar skills and mature in our character development. The open question, and challenge, remains – to think about the divisiveness in our world, and our personal interactions that result from such divisions, as a training ground to make closer our walks with each other and with our Abba.   This past week I had the opportunity to take on this challenge. There... 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 the rhythm of these days as when He dwelt among us. As we partake of this holy meal we can more deeply experience what it may have felt like some 2000 years ago. . .   At Passover we commemorate our freedom from bondage as slaves in Egypt. What a joyous time, Mi Chamocha!  And yet, after that, we wandered in the wilderness, some never to even make it to the Promised Land. How similarly must the Apostles... 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 much as we are drawn to, we would be overwhelmed and in a constant state of prayer.  Not that that is a bad thing but we are in this life called and pulled in many directions with responsibilities not only to ourselves, but also, for others. How can we feel happiness when so many are suffering? How can we worry about being late to work when people are being killed in the streets? So we work to integrate these... 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 during these stressful times filled with misplaced boundaries.   In case you missed the drama of that evening, Will Smith became so upset about a comment Chris Rock made as a joke about Will Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith that Will went on stage and slapped Chris, then returned to his seat with follow up statements laced with profanities. Pinkett Smith suffers from a medical condition alopecia that made t... 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 continued, it’s been harder than ever to walk this narrow precipice, the daily joys in our lives sometimes seeming so out of place against the horror of war on civilians.   My maternal ancestry came from Tulchin, Ukraine. In reading of its history as it pertains to Jews, it’s a wonder I’m even here today for so many of my ancestors were deliberately killed over the centuries.  As you may know, that part of... 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 or members of our spiritual community is clearly an inspired concept that has withstood the test of time.   In conversations with my sister who is my havruta partner, we both have grown in our understanding not only of Messianic Judaism, but perhaps more importantly, through this interaction we each have learned more about ourselves. We not only discuss our individual prayer practices and study the Bible... 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 these extremes, these recent days being a strong evidence of that reality.   I have had two siblings, plus children and grandchildren visiting our home here in Florida for the first time since we bought it, so there was much to see and do! Each day was filled with so many activities and fun experiences, jam packed! From the very early morning walks with my sister to the beach days with the kids to the... 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 ultimate reality; (4) God is One despite the many appearances He has had throughout history; and (5) God alone is our King. . . “   As a Messianic Jew, by far one of the most often heard criticisms of our faith by mainstream Jews relates to the concept of a “triunum” God, that we can understand Him as able to be “three mints in one” (for those of you who are old enough to remember Certs commercials’ two mints in... 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 very profound statement, one that would heal our world if universally applied.   My morning routine for decades has been to jog and during that time listen to Messianic Jewish music as I talk with God. It is my time with Him, uninterrupted, just He and I. Such times always brought me more intimately into our relationship and often were, and still are as I write this, the place of inspiration for most of my... 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 soundtrack, I listened to one of Rabbi Nathan’s Maturing in Messiah YouTube classes.   The message was so compelling. In so few words, he summarized one of the most enigmatic concepts of our faith, the relationship of Yeshua to the Holy Spirit (the Ruach), and to the Father, our Abba. He unpacked through his presentation this simple, yet profoundly deep statement that summarizes the relationship: “We draw near... Read More →