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Mendel Jacobson

Parshat Beha’alotcha: Lighter Fluid

June 10, 2009, by

When you kindle the lamps… There are so many of them, hanging on the walls and swinging from the ceilings. They line the corridors of this musty place and stand uptight on the nighttime streets of this sleepy hallow. They are all different, no two the same: countless shapes and sizes, a kaleidoscope of colors

Parshat Naso: Carry On

May 31, 2009, by

To serve and to carry… It was a wasteland. I remember. Nothing could ever grow there. Not plants and not relationships. I would walk there, thinking what a perfect world – after all, waste was all I knew. This was the reality into which I was born. I grew up believing that what you see

Parshat Bamidbar: Desert Prose

May 19, 2009, by

Walk on the sands of an hourglass shattered. Bare feet blistered, bleeding as they drag on those little grains of a scorched earth. It is so cold, then so hot: cold because the heart is turned to ice, hot because the feverish mind is burning up. The paradoxes of this place make no sense at

Parshat Behar-Bechukotai: Heightened Sense

May 12, 2009, by

On Mount Sinai… Many metaphors hitchhike along the road that is Life on the hoarse-driven carriage that is the oft-used vocal cords of Language. Heaven and Earth, besides for being what they are, represent our lofty aspirations and pragmatic implementations; High and Low, besides for being notches on the vertical yardstick, depict ones feelings and

Parshat Emor: Per Say

May 6, 2009, by

Say to the… It isn’t easy saying it. Especially when it’s real. We met at one of those crossroads; you know, one of those that are more cross and less road. She was sleeping there. I was awake; thought I knew where I was going. Ha! In retrospect, what a foolish thought. Well, she was

Parshat Acharei-Kedoshim: Holiness on a Mundane St.

April 28, 2009, by

Holy shall you be for holy am I I never really knew what it meant. What it meant to be holy. Holy in thought, holy in speech, holy in action. Of course I had seen prayer shawls in sway and long beards in rhythm; I had heard songs of praise and sung tunes of glory.

Parshat Tazria-Metzora: Sow Pure

April 22, 2009, by

The pieces of a broken heart are not easily put back together again. But this is only learned the hard way – through the course of Experience – and I have been its ever-diligent student. The innocent child I know today – that pure heart grown from unity – was born of the great challenges

Parshat Shemini: Practice Makes Perfect

April 12, 2009, by

We all hope for Perfection. Some of us even do something about it. For many years he has worked. A dreamer by trade, an architect by necessity. He has built and built: brick after brick, layer upon layer, bit by little bit – and now, today, out of a bottomless pit it has risen: A

Parshat Tzav: Commanding Eternity

March 31, 2009, by

Command Aharon and his sons…an eternal fire shall blaze She was so beautiful. She made me laugh and I knew she could make me cry. She was so beautiful and she made everything around her so beautiful. She made me so beautiful. And that is impossible. I remember one time she walked into a dark

Parshat Vayikra: Of Animals and Men

March 25, 2009, by

It is a zoo out there – just as it is a zoo in here: it is a zoo out there, in the universe which we live in; and it is a zoo in here, in the universe which lives in us. Predator and Prey circle each other in an ageless, primitive dance, the first