The nurturing flow goes in both directions. We can look to our elders for guidance and perspective, and share their stories of resilience with our children. In parallel, we can help our elders come into closer contact with our children so that they can be enlivened by them as well.
Education and the Long Middle
While schools can offer an official measure of our children around how they are progressing in acquiring the skills, tools, and competencies to function as citizens of the world, when children struggle at school, our homes can offer an important corrective.
Shmita and Release
And while we may be better versed in Shabbat celebration, that comes as a disruption to the centrality we place on work, and helps us refocus our attention every week on rest and reflection, shmita is a shabbat on a much larger scale.
Reconnecting To How We Spend Our Time
While we all need technology to live, work and function, what happens if we live without it, for a few hours, or a day, or even a year?
Let it Rain! (in good measure)
There is another lesson I am learning from the prayer for rain that we said at the very end of the prayers on Shemini Atzeret at the end of the Jewish holiday cycle. It struck me this year as particularly poignant…Rain should fall.
