Ruth Schapira
4 ways to add meaning to a Bar / Bat Mitzvah
Of course there's meaning in the ceremony, but often the goal of sustained impact is not as easy as you might think. Teens are exposed...
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Ruth Schapira
2 min read
Mind and Motion
Judaism's Awareness of the Body-Mind Connection Judaism offers an incredible teaching about how our minds and bodies work together, and...
Ruth Schapira
2 min read
What’s Your Reality?
We live in a tangible and physical world, and it is the very nature of our surroundings that creates automatic obstacles in connecting...
Ruth Schapira
3 min read
Judaism's Hack for Your Truest Nature
Our sages were always trying to find the shortest ways to describe complicated concepts. While there are 48 Ways to Wisdom (elucidated in...
Ruth Schapira
3 min read
Mountain of Mitzvot? Not!
Our tradition tells us that the sole purpose of Torah is for us to refine our character, and the way toward that end is through action,...
Ruth Schapira
2 min read
Accepting Missteps
How tolerant are we of our own mistakes? Do we forgive others more easily than we forgive ourselves? Should we hold ourselves in contempt...
Ruth Schapira
2 min read
Your Light of Wisdom
Our days are rather filled "up" with day-to-day undertakings, and sometimes we barely get in all the activities we schedule. So where and...
Ruth Schapira
2 min read
The Spiritual Steps of the Omer
This year, I am involving myself more personally and seriously than ever before in the counting of the Omer, the period of time between...
Ruth Schapira
3 min read
Passover: The Inner Message of Freedom
Hebrew is full of secrets, embedded with layers and layers of meaning, woven from the thread of reality as Judaism sees it. I happened on...
Ruth Schapira
3 min read
The Jewish Meaning of Happiness
Happy. It's often a response [I just want them to be happy] to the question "What do you want for your children?" Being happy is what our...
Ruth Schapira
2 min read
Your soul is speaking, are you listening?
Aren't I the only one here? What's this business about me, a soul and all this spirituality stuff? There's a lot of talk about soul (not...
Ruth Schapira
3 min read
Add your light to the darkness
In the times of Noah, there was total lawlessness in the world. Just 10 generations (according to tradition) after Adam, the world is in...
Ruth Schapira
2 min read
sharing my Jewish journey with you
(Posted originally on “Reclaiming Judaism”) This blog has become an intimate part of my life. I began writing it in 2011 as part of a...
Ruth Schapira
2 min read
A corona Yom Kippur
If you would have asked me what words come to mind when I think about Yom Kippur, the word joy would never have made the top ten list....
Ruth Schapira
4 min read
The True Jewish Meaning of Love
This is a new experience for me, responding to a reader request! After reading a post on Gratitude, I was asked to write about Love....
Ruth Schapira
4 min read
Elul: The vanity of individualism
“..the more enamored we are of our selves, the more fixed we are in our own ‘realities’, limiting the possibilities of our awareness.”...
Ruth Schapira
3 min read
What is a mitzvah, really?
Mitzvah. Good deed? Commandment? You might be most familiar with the word mitzvah as it appears in Bar or Bat Mitzvah which is usually...
Ruth Schapira
3 min read
Do we own our Jewish history?
I read something from an unlikely source that struck my deepest core as a Jew, and came to a full stop at a passage from the first...
Ruth Schapira
3 min read
The one summer I chose Israel
At different times in my life, Jewish educators would often prompt seminar audiences to describe and prioritize their Jewish identity....
Ruth Schapira
3 min read
What I Learned About Leadership From An Evangelical Minister
Here’s what I learned about engaging lay people from an Evangelical minister during a holiday dinner party: a faith community’s goals...
Welcome to my blog archive. You can read new posts on Substack.
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