Rev. Chani's Blog

I was 23 years old with three children when I left my arranged marriage. Perhaps out of necessity, perhaps due to circumstances, I had created a life for myself where busyness and packed schedules were the norm. I was raising the kids, going to school, working multiple jobs.  I had this dream… I would be 40 when […]

“Tell me more about your journey with Tefillin? I want to understand it.” Yael Kanarek asks me in a conversation a few weeks ago as she prepares the Toratah (her Torah) Tefillin for Jericho Vincent.

“What if it were ok to feel your desire? To allow yourself to experience the intensity of sexual craving and pleasure?” The fear that came across my client’s eyes (her face was covered with a mask) was palpable. 

People are looking at their lives and asking themselves, does this work for me?

Does what I have always done feed me? Nourish me? Allow me to be who I want to be in the world?

I am not someone who watches the news, or much TV, and so I know very little about celebrities and their lives. When I heard about Prince Harry giving up his title as senior royal, the story began to tug at my heart.  I did not know why at first, but something felt familiar.

As I sit down to write this reflection, I am struck by the dichotomies that have become an everyday occurrence in this past year. What does it mean to put on a mask on Purim when we have spent the entire year masked? What does it mean to be showing more of ourselves when most of us have seen into each other’s homes virtually? We’ve been into the homes of our bosses, our colleagues, our therapists, and even our clergy, where we probably would never have been invited physically.