To be realistic, those pearls of authenticity rescued from the ocean floor of your deep mind must go through a process of refinement before they can have full impact in the world. Rav Kook offers some perspective on this.

The "search for authenticity" is like a narrow bridge. There are dangers on both sides - indulgence and self-absorption on one side, ignoring the treasures within on the other. Rav Kook provides incredible guidance for traversing the narrow bridge.

Ramchal is talking about things that are certainly fabulous to experience. But the barriers of his - and most - religious language leave people feeling outside of the experience. And since we find ourselves right now in the midst of the Three Weeks, we will discuss the unnecessarily off-putting religious language of "senseless hatred."

It is essential that we do the actions that are building blocks of the future we want to see. The practice, and the future want to see, cannot be separated.

Here we look at Ramchal's expression of what the purpose of our being is. And it is NOT austere. And it is NOT waiting for marshmallows. It is far more compelling, and far more inviting.

In this first installment of The Direct Path, we clarify: the possibilities are truly infinite. The path to those possibilities is crystal clear. The word is hard. And it starts with clarifying the question, "What, exactly, is our obligation in our world?"

A person might notice that they are not bringing their full selves to their Service - that they are distracted, or don't care. Or maybe a person is operating on a very old model of "what God is" and this old model is genuinely (and thankfully) uninspiring. Time for an Olah.

The book of Vayikra - Levitticus - describes, in great detail, the actions called korbanot, usually mistranslated as sacrifices. These descriptions contain far more than descriptions of the ritual slaughter of animals; they contain eternal guidance that can inform how we come close to Hashem today.

Every Jewish holiday happens with the current moment - moods and news cycles and the like. Pesach in particular - with its intended intergenerational conversations about the path ot freedom - takes place in the context of what is happening in families. And here we are, as a family, spending lots. of. time. together. A perfet time to gather intel!

Esther invited the king and Haman to a party.... and then invited them to another party, at which she finally told Achashveirosh that Haman's plot was against her own people. The reason why she didn't tell the king at the first party is because she knew how to do "Hamten" - "Wait."