Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman Parashat Ki Tissa, 2010 Nature and culture are the twin poles of human existence. Nature is how the world greets us in raw beauty, promise and power. Culture is how we partner with it, riding its sound waves with music, converting wood and stone into homes, and carving ski slopes out …

Meir Sendor From Sh’ma: a journal of Jewish Responsibility October 3, 1997Reprinted with Permission Healing remains one of the genuine mysteries of our daily lives. Real healing from physical or emotional illness is a multidimensional process, and new medical fields such as psychoneuroendoimmunology indicate a growing modern awareness of the intricate interrelationship between mind and …

by Avis Dimond Miller From Moment, October 1997Reprinted With Permission It’s been said that 90 percent of life is just showing up. A news article in the Washington Post told about how a wealthy person in Japan, afraid of the embarrassment of a small turnout, can rent a cast of hundreds from an agency to …

Jewish tradition has long recognized that there are two components of health: the body and the spirit. The Mi Sheberach prayer, traditionally recited for someone who is ill, asks God for refuah shleima, a complete healing, and then specifies two aspects: refuat hanefesh, healing of the soul/spirit/whole person, and refuat haguf, cure of the body. …