Jungian therapist and spiritual director Bonnelle Strickling speaks of three levels of dream interpretation. The same dream can have something to say about a dreamer’s daily life, inner world, or relationship with the Divine. Joseph’s Dreams Joseph relates two dreams to his family. In one dream: We were binding sheaves in the field, when my…
Your Face is God's Face
Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, a holocaust theologian, knew what it meant to call out to God but get no response. In a world where God does not always respond, responsibility falls on us. Each person is responsible for responding to the other. To be ethical, then, is to be response-able. Thus, our ethical and spiritual challenge…
Know Where You Are Going
Pirkei Avot, a book of foundational principles of Jewish Ethics, teaches, “Know where you come from and to where you are going.” (Avot 3:1) In order to gain this deep knowledge of self, we sometimes have to pause between the place we come from and the place we are going. When our ancestor Jacob begins…
Dreams in Torah
“Jacob dreamed: a ladder was standing on the ground, and its top reached up toward heaven. God’s angels were going up and down on it.” (Bereisheet/Genesis 28:12) Dreams, says Torah, are key to communication with God. In a dream, Abraham learns that his great, great grandchildren will pass through slavery to freedom. Isaac is comforted…
How to Honour a Woman
About 1500 years ago, our sages paired each weekly Torah reading with a specific reading from the prophets. The reading from the prophets is called the haftarah, or completion. It comments on or updates the ideas in the Torah. This week’s Torah-haftarah pair offers a wonderful example of “completion.” This week’s parsha is Chayei Sarah,…
Hagar, Sarah, and Hope
In Torah, Sarah and Hagar have a troubled relationship. They live as family, but Sarah is mistress of the house and Hagar is her legal property. Hagar gives birth to Avraham’s first son Yishmael, but the family birthright is destined for Sarah’s son Yitzchak. The two women take turns “lording it” over one another emotionally.…
Forgiveness & Atonement
How does forgiveness happen? Does a victim decide to stop being trapped by the past? Or must a perpetrator also repent? In Parshat Vayigash, the two are connected. Years ago Joseph’s older brothers sold into him slavery and presumed him dead. But now, Joseph is a high-ranking Egyptian minister. His older brothers have come to…