The comparison between Noach and Avraham is odious – they represent essential developmental stages, and each did their job perfectly.  But now we look at how Avraham is an evolution of Noach’s model.

Shabbat complains that it doesn’t have a mate, and Hashem says that the Jewish people are its mate.  This imagery is not sterile – there is intimate union on/with Shabbat that is worth exploring and understanding.

Noach – a perfect metaphor for evolution?  but more like divine selection than natural selection.  but toward what end?

we experience love all the time.  we therefore have a constant meditation on what love is and how it works, and can tweak ‘love’ at any point within the continuum with effect on the whole.

The work of ascending begins with doing mitzvot with joy.  Why mitzvot?   Why joy?  This class is an interesting exploration of how we remove ourselves and the world around us from its broken state.

Spirituality can be an escape toward the light.  How does it fit?  An exploration of ruach and neshama, of spirit and soul, up and down, Jung and Torah.

but we have to refine them.  We already know how to love – but we need to learn how to love well, fear well, apply these emotions correctly in the right direction.

We are walking around with definitions – of success, of happiness, of relationship.  When we start the Torah over again, it is an opportunity to recalibrate our definitions.

What does it mean that it is ‘all one’?  It is not as simple as saying the words – it is a process that requires transcending our limitations (which is a whole thing in itself).  But this can be too violent, where we leave ourselves behind to reach this ‘bliss state’.  But Rebbe Nachman offers [...]

Shabbat is a day of soul – when we are given the opportunity to line our lives up the way it is supposed to be done – and will be, ultimately, in the end of days.  But what is soul?  This class took an unexpected turn when we introduced the topic of soul vs. spirit [...]