What do you think is the cruelest punishment that society can inflict? 

Children aren’t ours to possess or own in any way. When we know this in the depths of our soul, we tailor our raising of them to their needs, rather than molding them to fit our needs. – Shefali Tsabary   My husband attended the wedding of a Jewish client of ours, and he came... Read more »

Your signature strengths are a gift from God to you. How you use your signature strengths, however, is your gift back to God.

If you're a Jewish kid who graduated law school – and got a job – chances are your proud parents gave you a picture with the famous quote, “Justice, justice, shall you pursue…" Now let's understand what it really means!

I’ll never forget the day when I learned how the world works and why people do what they do. I was running a community event and my cohort made a unilateral decision, which was a game changer for the event, and then put it out in an email, which made it public and permanent.  Confirming... Read more »

The response I got from Facebook hit me like a punch in the stomach. I had joined about 26,000 other people in asking Facebook to take down the “I Hate Israel” page, as Facebook has a so-called “policy” that supposedly doesn’t permit hate speech.

  “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”  – Carl Jung I was passing the lounge area of a hotel on my way out the door and I glanced up at the TV monitor, which was tuned to a news station.  “Coming up next”, the anchor... Read more »

The Book of Deuteronomy starts out with Moses doing a recap and overview of the Jewish people since they left Egypt, and the review was hardly favorable.

Not to be an alarmist, but we could be on the brink, once again, of facing great challenges. However, when we rise to the occasion, we achieve great heights.

My husband was shaking his head as he was scrolling down the text on his cellphone.  “Who do you think Greece blames for the collapse of its economy?” “I dunno…” I replied offhandedly, “must be the Jews.”  I thought I was being sarcastic. My husband then read to me the most vile invectives spewed by... Read more »

We don’t have to be churlish and demand instant answers to everything, especially since answers can trivialize serious issues and are far from soul-satisfying.

Chassidic thought teaches that there is a seed of greatness in every moment and a spark of holiness in everything – even more so in people. Try looking for it with positive questions.

A ratio of 1:1 (compliment/criticism) will destroy the quality of your relationship as surely as it destroyed the generation of the Jewish people in the desert.

Just as the very process of creation is said to be ongoing, so is our involvement. We are God’s partners in the process of creation. But what are we creating?

Shame disconnects us – from others and also from ourselves. Disconnection is the diametric opposite of wholeness, as connection is the very mainspring of well-being.

On the one hand, we are elevated, each soul, a precious and unique possession, and yet on the other, we should be indistinguishable as shifting sand. Which is right?

In giving us the Torah in the desert, God was freeing us not just from the reality of slavery, but also from the mentality of slavery.

In liberating the Jewish people from slavery, God had to teach us what freedom – true freedom – looks like. Without a paradigm or model to go on, God had to teach us from the ground up.

Not everything in Judaism has to be a big deal, a huge loyalty test to God or a supreme test of will and character.

What G-d is really telling us, is that our job, our only job is to connect with G-d, and in so doing, we will be connected with our truest, deepest selves.

The first word of this week’s Torah portion, "Vayikra," literally means, "And He called ..." G-d is calling us – all the time. It’s up to us to tune in and listen.

When you are creating a dwelling place for holiness, the details really do matter. G-d was very specific and clear. For a reason.

I would like to think that in any situation, my highest, bravest self would guide me to do the right thing, no matter what. But that would be naive thinking.

We all know the expression, “Clothes make the man.”  Is this about creating an external reality via the perceptions of others? Or do the outer garments we wear affect us on an internal level, which then creates a external reality?

Think about what enslaves you. What makes it hard for you to be generous or to let go? What would it take for you to shift from a feeling of lack to a feeling of abundance?

Last week, we took a little 3-day family outing, bringing loads of luggage fit for a Sherpa, to New York City, the land of “everything”. We left home an hour and a half past our estimated departure time (don’t ask). Ten or fifteen minutes into the trip we had to turn around and come back... Read more »

A man gets into his car, and decides – in the name of “optimism” – that he won’t buckle up. Is he an optimist or is he an idiot? After delivering a lecture on optimism to a large tech company, Shawn Achor, one of the gurus of Positive Psychology, was being driven to the airport... Read more »

Few things are more painful than feeling that you’ve been “set up” by God. We have all had days where it seems like the universe is out to get us, and we are the butt of some cosmic joke. Sometimes, you can just see that big divine foot – a la Monty Python – coming... Read more »