Chesed: Love. Tiferet: Beauty. Chesed she’b’Tiferet: The love in beauty. Love that sees beauty. And love that seeks beauty. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” At the simplest level, this means we all find different things beautiful. When we love someone, for example, they seem beautiful to us. Like my cat Koi. He’s…
Category: Love
Lasting Judgment: Omer 11
Netzach. Endurance. Gevurah. Judgment. Netzach she’b’gevurah. Enduring Judgment. Ever read evaluations of your own teaching? Or an event you led? If so, then you know. You might get 28 positive comments, with one negative outlier. And what do you remember most? What lingers in your thoughts and hurts your heart? The one negative comment. Even…
Love Quiets Judgment: Omer 8
Gevurah. Power. Boundaries. Judgment. Chesed she’b’Gevurah. Judgment tempered by Love. My husband is a cognitive psychologist. So he has thought a lot about how minds work. How people collect information, organize it, and use it to make judgments. So, today I interviewed him. Here’s a bit of what he said. Raw judgment is dangerous. Let…
Presence in Love: Omer 7
Malchut. Another name for Shechinah, the maternal Divine Presence we can feel in everyday life. Malchut she’b’chesed. Presence in Love. When I was a newlywed, I thought a lot about presence in love-making. How to be fully present to your own experience. And also be fully present as part of a team of two. How…
Forever Love: Omer Day 4
Netzach. Forever. Netzach she’b’chesed. Forever Love. What does that even look like? Like a mother’s love? Maybe? We talked about that today, in my Sacred Texts and Oral Traditions class. So many cultures tell stories about the Mother of all life. Why, we asked, is this archetype so powerful? Because, I said, we believe in…
Unconditional Love: Omer 3
Tiferet. Beauty. Tiferet she’b’chesed, the beauty in love. I want the people I love to find me beautiful. What do I hope they’ll see? I hope my children will see me as wise, calm, and kind. And I hope my spouse will see me as…actually, I’m not sure. Something good? Maybe the details don’t matter.…
Boundaries in Love: Omer 2
Boundaries. Strength. Good Judgment. You need these to love well. Or, as we say in Omer speak, gevurah she’b’chesed, boundaries in love. So, I’m always working on boundaries. Sometimes, when someone I love asks me to do something, I feel panic. Then, I pause before saying “yes.” And I reflect. What’s the panic about? Do…
Family Love: Omer 1
Love. Kindness. Two good translations of the Hebrew word chesed. If you’re counting the Omer, chesed is the word of the week. If you haven’t counted the Omer before, here’s a quick primer. https://www.sophiastreet.com/sefirat-haomer-counting-the-omer/ There are many different kinds of love. But today I want to focus on family love. It’s quite present to me…
Video: Sulam on Sophia Street Concert
Friends, here is the video of the Sulam on Sophia Street concert celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Sophia Street blog. If you’d like to get oriented first, here’s a sneak peak at the program. And here’s a link to donate to First United, a project helping those hardest hit by the pandemic. Thank you…
Program: Sulam on Sophia Street
Tenth Anniversary Concert Thank you for joining us! You may know Sulam as a party band. Usually we play upbeat music together. But in this time of pandemic lockdown, we can’t play together. And we don’t feel as upbeat as we usually do! So, today, we are sharing music on more contemplative themes. Soul. Love.…