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Elul 25 Message

There are eight ways to practice the attribute of humility and each corresponds to a place on the body. (Moshe Cordovoro, Tamar Devorah)

The fourth practice focuses on our ears, as he writes:

Turn your attention to hearing good and positive things. Shut out falseness, evil gossip, judgment.

Once I went to visit my friends at Primrose Valley Farm located amidst the rolling hills of Wisconsin. They are CSA farmers (community supported agriculture) planting high quality produce, free of chemicals, using methods that sustain the earth, and uphold ethical standards as prescribed in Judaism. We go to the farm as often as we can. It is peaceful, filled with sacred intention, good company and wonderful food.

Elul 24 Message

There are eight ways to practice the attribute of humility and each corresponds to a place on the body.

The third practice is with one’s forehead, as he writes:

A person’s forehead should display no harshness. Your face should reflect willingness, acceptance, pleasantry.

When I was a child a girl’s forehead was the place where you debated with your friends and mom, bangs or a center part. Then as my own daughters became teens, they spoke a lot about eyebrows. Unruly, uni-brow, bushy, plucked, waxed, thin line, severely arched, slightly curved, or groomed like Brooke Shields. Then, as the years passed, I somehow stopped looking at eyebrows started looking at hairlines. Receded or simply disappearing hairlines seem to have less judgment than comb-overs. And then there is always the question, is the thinness from illness or age.

But now, right now, I understand that the space above my eyes tells a story to the world. In the lines of your forehead is an expression of your spirit. Worried, concerned, deep in thought, content, angry.

Elul 23 Messages

There are eight ways to practice the attribute of humility and each corresponds to a place on the body. (Moshe Cordovoro, Tamar Devorah)

The second practice is with one’s thoughts, as Cordovoro writes:

“Meditate and contemplate on thoughts of goodness, godliness, kindness.”

Elul 22 Message

Moshe Cordovoro teaches in Tamar Devorah (The Palm Tree of Devorah) that to be in the image of God means to be humble, for through humility we learn and practice compassion. There are eight ways to practice the attribute of humility and each corresponds to a place on the body.

The first practice is with the head, as he writes:

Lower your gaze, a person who raises their head upward glorifies himself.

Building Mosque in the Community and How It Affects US

Friends,

The events of recent weeks regarding the Cordoba House Mosque and Community Center in Lower Manhattan is very distressing. The emotions and generalizations seem to imply a syllogism that is counter to our beliefs as Americans and as well as dangerous to us as people of faith. We must stand up and support the freedom of religious expression of all faiths in this country. We must fight against the dangerous tendency to categorize all peoples of the same faith as one. That is to say, we cannot abide by the assumption that all Muslims support terrorist activity and every mosque preaches hate. As Jews we know what it is like to be likened to stereotypes, held accountable for ideas that are said by fanatical Jewish groups that do not represent what we believe, and we know the sting and danger of bigotry and discrimination.

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