Since a couple of dear friends have just had babies, I decided to reprint this letter I wrote to my son, Leor for his 30th birthday. As a parent and a family counselor, I know how challenging it is to raise a child with little or no training or knowledge on what it takes to […]
“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it.” Martha Graham You […]
It all began innocently when I was four and a half years old. We had just moved from our one room dilapidated apartment in south Tel Aviv to a new, larger apartment in the northern part of the city. Full of excitement, having not seen my grandparents since our move, I got on the bus […]
This evening I went to have dinner with my parents, as I have done on most Friday nights for the past three decades. My mom is probably one of the greatest Yemenite cooks and having Shabbat dinner with her and my father is always a treat. Usually Leor, David, my brother and his son, Eric, […]
The greatest source of unhappiness and pain in our lives is our unfulfilled desire to experience unconditional love. Why is it so important to us and how can we learn to give it to ourselves?
Spiritual teachers serve us in two significant ways: they awaken us to our higher selves, and stretch us by role modeling love and courage; e.g. Mandela in jail for 27yrs.
I vividly remember sitting in front of the mirror, when I was fourteen and fifteen, looking intently at my face, trying to find ugly. I could not comprehend what it meant. “What is ugly?” I used to ask myself. I never saw or understood it, but it was not up to me to understand, I just needed to accept that others found me ugly. They communicated it in many ways, from directly avoiding or ignoring me to telling me straight to my face.
Interestingly, accepting their perceptions of me did not affect my perception of myself. I continued to focus on what was important to me and did not seek to look better or impress others. Something happened when I turned sixteen. I am not clear what it was that changed about me, perhaps I grew out of that awkward teen stage. All I knew was that people began to respond to me differently. Suddenly everyone found me attractive; guys would whistle to me on the street and boys would want to talk to me in school. I remember resenting this change in attitude toward me – I knew nothing had changed, I was exactly the same person – but somehow because my exterior changed, I was “worthy” of their attention.
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