Light of Infinite

Hashem/God reminds Moshe/Moses that whatever impingement he feels he has, it cannot impede him from his destiny, nor the people from redemption. Once Moshe was able to rid himself of his doubt and submit to his destiny, he was able to perform miracles. And of course miracles happen every moment, disguised as nature, but if we cloud them with doubt or anxiety, we can’t see the miraculous good.  Wit...

We start reading Shemot/Exodus this week where we see that Moshe/Moses felt and knew that he wasn’t Egyptian, despite his upbringing and surroundings, he knew he was an Israelite.  Moshe had an attachment to Yocheved and her children. He later found out he was her son and they, his siblings. As the saying goes, the truth always comes out in the end. It was then that, “Moshe grew up, and he went ou...

Carrie Fisher used to say, “take your broken heart, make it into art.” It’s incredible how we are able to turn tragedy into triumph & our own dark moments into light & hope for others. There’s nowhere we see our interconnectedness more than in art. The stories that are the most popular in films & literature play off the primary story (rises, falls). A few examples: Rags to Riches, Rich...

It seems that each of our lives is a string of struggles to feel aligned in the most elevated ways. Finding our purpose is certainly the first step to being able to tap into the elevated space, but because of how hard it is to maintain being in that space, we fall, we question, sometimes we rebel against the truth because of it’s seemingly transient feeling. What we don’t seem to tap into enough i...

Read For Good Karma✨ The story of Joseph's struggle and redemption is super inspiring! I shared some of these lessons about this week's Torah portion after my mom passed away - I hope it brings you some solace and light🕊 We read of Pharaoh that “in the morning, his spirit was troubled. He sent for & summoned all the magicians of Egypt & all the wise men. Pharaoh told them his dream, but n...

For this week, I do a deep dive into the damaging effects of lashon hara (speaking negatively).  Blessings don’t come easily in this world. Everything of great value comes through hardship. Even peace itself comes from being diligent in bittul (self-transcendence), choosing how to navigate our reactions. The deeper & more meaningful a relationship is the better the chances are of having diffic...

What do Rebbe Nachman, the Wu Tang Clan, the Abarbanel, and Led Zeppelin have in common? Not much, but they all made their way into this week's chapter/episode.;) So much of emunah (faith) and connectedness revolve around sleep and dreams, at least for me. In moments of faithlessness and doubt, I sometimes get overwhelmed with anxiety and find it hard to sleep-- thoughts are racing through my head...

This week with Jim Morrision and Annie Hall, & of course Rebbe Nachman! It seems that in almost every moment of our lives, we are caught between two choices: the easier or more selfish choice and something a bit harder, a selfless choice. Sometimes safek/doubt blurs the lines between the two, but often, if we tap into emuna/faith & our gut, we know which is the one for us. Every action aff...

The Talmud teaches that “In the merit of righteous women, our ancestors were redeemed from Egypt”. Redemption is intrinsically related to women, malchut  (sovereignty/kingship), & the Divine feminine dimension. God’s Infinite Light originates at a level that is beyond this world, physically inaccessible to us, but it is filtered down through the Sefirot until it reaches the malchut, out of whi...

The more I get real with new people that I meet, the more I hear about the variety of struggles that seem to hit us all at various times. It makes us realize how each of us are our own complex universes and each universe is affected by the other. It’s why spreading joy and light is such an important part of life, as each person has the ability to ignite the other person’s light and positive outloo...

In the Torah this week, we learn that on Avraham’s journey toward Israel that he finds himself in a famine and is forced to go down to Egypt, as it’s written, “And there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt.” This seems like an odd turn of events, after he is tasked with the journey and given blessings of greatness. But we see in Avraham’s journeys, the history of B’nei Yisrael (...

This week's Torah portion is the story of Noah and the flood, we also read the word #Hamas twice, "And the earth had become corrupt before G-d, and the earth had become full of HAMAS. and God saw the earth, and behold it was corrupted, for all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth....The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth has become full of HAMAS because of them, and behold I am...

We're back in the Torah portion of Bereishit (Genesis), which contains almost all of the mind-blowing kabbalistic concepts of the Light of the Infinite. When Hashem (God) said, 'Let There Be Light…. And It Was Good,' it clues us into the purpose of Creation– to reveal light and goodness in this world.  We need this now more than ever. I'm praying we can meditate and manifest this redemptive consci...

It's only by finding one’s purpose and living in alignment that we find our true happiness. For this week, I dove into my middle name which is the same as the mountain Moshe ascended and I touched on some of the secrets of creation, & a bit about what I learned the other week at a Brittany Howard concert! Creation involves concealment. The word olam (universe) is semantically linked to the wor...

For this week, I wrote about the secrets to being in harmony with each other and the world, bringing in wisdom by Pharrell, Rebbe Nachman, David Sacks and the Ramban. Meanwhile, around this time (Yom Kippur) marked the last day I was to say Kaddish for my mom who passed away almost three years ago. In some ways, it was a relief to not have to say it. As her only son, having this sole responsibilit...

Music has been such an important healing tool for me over the years. Feeling good comes in waves, so if you hit a funk, it’s important to have ways to get yourself out. For some it’s being in nature, seeing the grand grace and epic beauty of creation, for others it’s exercising, and for others it’s staying connected to loved ones. For me, staying happy and connected is certainly tied to maintainin...

As we touched on in the "Don’t Hate, Foster The People" chapter in my latest book, "Emanations of Illumination." Another way to think about our collective Oneness is through water. We know that water is fundamental to all life; our bodies are mostly water, and the brain and heart, in particular, are composed of 73% water. That means we have 73% in common with every person in the world. This gives...

First fruits, blessings and our Promised Land. I dive into it all via The Rebbe, Jay-Z, Mark Twain, The Arizal and a memory of my Savta from Addis Ababa and Yemen in this week’s Parashah, Ki Tavo!  Here are the first couple paragraphs with some memories of my time in Israel.  My family is originally from Yemen, where my ancestors lived for close to 2,000 years. Nearly 100 years ago, in 1933, my gr...

In this week's Torah portion we learn how to not perpetuate hatred, bringing in wisdom by Rav Kook, Rebbe Nachman, Dr. David Hawkins, MLK, and more. I set it off writing about my favorite minyan.  I was at the minyan I’m almost always at on Shabbat, my friend Lorenzo’s minyan, inspired by and under the instruction of the Ostrova-Biala Rebbe. The minyan is in his backyard, and the group of men and...

So much anxiety is brought on by thinking one won’t receive what is just. Of course, everyone’s view of their own justice looks different. But the idea of not receiving what you think you deserve, whether from a person or the universe creates a division and distancing in one’s relationships to others, to oneself, and even to life itself.  Justice brings peace, but only when judgment/gevurah is bal...

Even though it sounds like a contradiction, the reality is that our possessions are only ours to the extent that we give them away.  With this article/dvar titled, "Mo Money Mo Problems, Mo Charity Mo Peace", I dive into the kabbalistic powers of charity, a lesson from the Middle Ages of a Sultan and a great Torah Sage, and share a story of a royal family that ruled a small kingdom (in what is now...

When I was living in Bushwick, NY, my roommate Aaron Wertheimer, an old childhood friend, would always watch Arrested Development. Seeing it in passing, I didn’t fully get the epicness of the show and its humor. When I gave it a real chance, I was hooked. I think it even topped Seinfeld in how beyond brilliant it was. As I write this, so many lines are circling my mind, but one that sticks out is...

I remember learning the power of the Shema (שְׁמַע) as a little kid. It felt like I was in the world of Harry Potter and someone had clued me into the Patronus charm, so if I put myself into a deep enough spiritual space, I would be able to conjure up protective power. The Shema was a way to channel Hashem’s oneness into this world; I could say it and manifest magic in my own life. It was a pathwa...

Tisha B’av is the most somber day in the Jewish calendar. It’s sobering to think that thousands of years ago, we were on top of the world: in the Promised Land, with our Beit HaMikdash (Holy Temple), fully connected to Hashem (God) in a revealed state.  It’s not a coincidence that the first word of the verse in this week's Torah portion, eicha, ‘how?’ , is the same word that sets off the Book of L...

The flip side of sleep and dreams is the one-sixtieth of death, and the flip side of faith is doubt which begins a vicious cycle of anxiety and brings us further from faith and peace. Many have been taught and can certainly feel that Shabbat is one-sixtieth of the World to Come, that is why the world to come is referred to as kulo Shabbat. When we keep Shabbat fully, when we pause on interfering w...