Light of Infinite

Years ago I connected with Nissim Black and we did a slew of songs together. I have seen him get bigger and bigger, and his light has reached just about everyone I know.. We all have so much light within us. That’s why we feel so much light when we encounter someone that’s fully tapped into their own. I played a show with him in LA and one line from his song with Levi Robin really resonated with m...

The lesson that keeps coming up is that the path to the Promised Land is fraught with obstacles, and we each must overcome our doubts and confusions and continuously clarify our goals. This happened with Avraham, having to go to Egypt first, and now we see it happening to the entire Jewish nation. Instead of being led on a direct path, God took them around. As Mac Miller sings on Hurt Feelings, “I...

The first mitzvah (commandment) given is to sanctify the New Moon. Rashi explains that Moshe wasn’t able to fully understand the mystery of the New Moon until Hashem showed him the exact moment of the moon’s renewal - and the deeper reason for the moon’s waxing and waning, one of the mysteries behind Creation, similar to the process of Tzimtzum – the contraction of God’s light – which led to the c...

Hashem reminds Moshe 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. & 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. With Pharaoh...

When Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked Rabbi Everett Gendler to help in Albany, GA., Gendler replied, “Even though my furniture had not yet arrived, I felt the need to respond to Rev. King’s prophetic appeal to conscience.” He walked hand in hand with MLK and the Torah in Selma joined by one of my favorite Theologian/Poet/Philosopher, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel . When Heschel was asked...

For this one, I jumped into a bit about being a music director @ WMUC & playing NYC jazz clubs.. butt I mostly spoke about the incredible journey of Moshe (Moses).  Moshe felt & knew that he wasn’t Egyptian, despite his upbringing and surroundings, he knew he was an Israelite. Moshe had an attachment to Yocheved & her children. He later found out he was her son and they, his siblings....

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 and our own dark moments into light and hope for others. There’s nowhere we see our interconnectedness more than in art. The stories that are the most popular in films and literature play off the primary story (rises, falls). A few examples: Rags to Riches, Riches to...

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...

LISTEN For Good Karma - The story of Yosef's struggle and redemption is super inspiring - I shared some of these lessons about this week's parashah after my mom passed away two years ago - 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 d...

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...

We all have encountered Esavs in our lives, whether as a part of ourselves or manifested in various people we encounter. Yakov demonstrates the various ways to overcome Esav and the yetzer hara he represents. Last week we saw Yakov asking only for food and clothing. He’s a picture of the simple tzadik. At this stage of his life, he was fearful of Lavan and Esav and would flee and run from his trou...

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

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

The Future Is Female The Talmud teaches that “In the merit of righteous women, our ancestors were redeemed from Egypt”. Redemption is intrinsically related to women, malchut (sovereignty), and 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 (s...

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 & 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 outl...

GO INWARD - This Shabbat is the yahrzeit of my mom (Frida Levona bat Shalom), so with her neshamat aliyah in mind, I wanted to share some thoughts on this week’s parashah. Most of us find it challenging to truly go inward. With life’s endless stream of distractions, our desire to be loved and to fit in keep us focused outward. Avraham discovered the Truth by searching what it meant to be his true...

As you may know, this week is the famous story of Noach and the flood. The entire generation had fallen to the sitra achra (the other side), and Hashem calls Noach righteous and perfect. Noach built an ark and rain fell for 40 days. Hundreds of days later, after a dove was sent out and returned with an olive branch in its mouth, Noach knew redemption had come and it was time to fully move forward....

This parashah/Torah Portion of Bereishit/Genesis, especially the first aliyah, contains almost all of the mind-blowing kabbalistic concepts of the Light of Infinite in it. When Hashem 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.  King David says in Tehillim/Psalms, “The world was built with chesed (loving-kindness...

It is 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, and 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 word...

For this week's article/dvar, leading up to Yom Kippur - 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, Yom Kippur last year marked the last day I was to say Kaddish for my mom who passed away almost two years ago. In some ways, it was a relief to not have to say it. As her only son,...

The Rashbam says the entire book of Devarim is called שירה, “Song,” We see this week that Torah is synonymous with Song. For this week, I wrote about how a song saved my life.  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...

As we touched on in parashat Ki Teitzei, 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. Which gives new meaning to the saying, “the grass is greener where you water it”. O...

I was asked to write for the Jewish Journal's "Table for Five: Rosh Hashanah Edition." They chose 5 writers/teachers/rabbi's to write 250 words about the following verses:  Behold, I stand here, impoverished in good deeds, perturbed and frightened in fear [of Him,] Who is enthroned upon the praises of Yisrael. I have come to stand and to plead before You in behalf of Your people, Yisrael, who have...

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 a few paragraphs from the dvar; The first fruits only became required once we entered, conquered, allocated and settled the Land. So the mitzvah was not a thanksgiving of the gift of the land by...

In this week's parashah we learn how to not perpetuate hatred, bringing in wisdom by Rav Kook, Rebbe Nachman, Dr. David Hawkins, MLK, and more. See below for the last two paragraphs from the dvar/article or go to lightofinfinite.com to read in full!  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 t...