Zohar, Hakdama Sefer haZohar 1:4b–5a. 2For a deep dive into the qualities cultivated in chavruta study, see Elie Holzer and Orit Kent, A Philosophy of Havruta: Understanding and Teaching the Art of Text Study in Pairs (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2013).

When I use this word, I am referring to the ineffable, enlivening, animating force that flows through everyone and everything. In addition to “God,” I use many different words to refer to this force, including the Divine, Source, and YHVH (the English representation of the Hebrew name, sometimes called the tetragrammaton, that is considered unprono

ritualized container for us to safely enter, dwell within, and depart from refreshed and renewed.

Through continuously asking, “What else could this be?” — of ourselves, of others, of our creations, and of the complex and challenging situations we encounter in our personal and communal life — we cultivate an appreciation for multiplicity, and the ability to hold multiple truths and perspectives at once.

Returning over and over to our work signifies a commitment to our creative process and a trust that it will unfold in its own time, through this oscillation of engagement and disengagement.

“Turn it and turn it, for everything is in it” (Pirkei Avot 5:22). Written with regards to our relationship to Torah, this verse from the Mishnah teaches that we are meant to be continually shifting our vantage point, seeing things from new angles, and allowing our perspective to change.

Sinai, God spoke “face-to-face” with each of us, in the presence of all of us. We each bring a fragment of the whole picture, which can only be deciphered when these fragments are brought together.

traditional rabbinic commentary is dense with multiple perspectives; diverse and even contradictory viewpoints are not only present, but often deeply valued.

Jewish tradition teaches adam olam katan, olam adam gadol: the human being is a microcosm of the world, the world is a macrocosm of the human being.4 We are not only of the earth — we are each a tiny world in and of ourselves, reflecting and effecting the broader whole.