Jewels 2011

Karen Bass Mayim Bialik Aomar Boum Kali Hawk Hen Mazzig Jessica Kate Meyer Gary Orren Yosi Sergant Tiffany Shlain Kira Soltanovich Jewels of Elul XXI. 29 short introspections on Finding Balance. Join us on a journey of discovery.

What? Jewels of Elul Vol. XIV is a booklet with short, inspirational anecdotes and insights from some of the both famous and under-the-radar leaders who influence and galvanize our global community. This year, our readers will get a window into our contributors’ deep reflection on the people they have become and the world they want to live in. These letters draw on their greatest pain, exuberant joy, biggest hopes and thoughtful expressions of what it means to be alive today. When? Over the 29 days leading up to Rosh Hashanah and the High Holy Days, we are challenged to search our

After 11 wonderful years of introspection, insight and discovery, editing and cajoling, I made the decision that it was time to retire the Jewels of Elul. The decision was bittersweet. How could it not be considering the extraordinary contributions of 290 writers over 10 years? While all things end their impact can move forward. I invite you to peruse this site for insight and wisdom from some of our communities most wonderful creators. Their words and thoughts are evergreen! With huge gratitude I thank all of the contributors, teachers and learners who participated in Jewels of Elul. Thank you and

Now in its eleventh year, Jewels of Elul is a booklet filled with short, inspirational insights from 29 contributors selected from our previous 10 editions. We’d love to know what your favorite Jewel is! Email to share it with us at favejewel@craignco.com! SaveSave

Jewels of Elul Vol IX, The Art of Welcoming is a booklet featuring Jewels from  Rick Lupert, Frank Luntz, Donald Davis, Cantor Angela Buchdahl, Quincy Jones, Idit Klein, Rabbi Stuart Kelman, Rabbi David Saperstein, Clive Lawton, Rabbi B. Elka Abrahamson, Raychel Kubby Adler, Yael Unterman, Rabbi David Wolpe, Rabbi Yehoshua Fass, Rabbi Nathaniel Helfgot, Carrie Bornstein, Joan Glanz Rimmon, Sally Quinn, Herve Humler, Reise Tanner, Anat Hoffman, Dr. Ron Wolfson, Dr. Richard S. Vosko, David Brenner, Rabbi Simon Jacobson, Mayor Eric Garcetti, Noa Achinoam Nini, Angela Sanbrano, Andrew Lustig and Rabbi Hayim Herring.  

featuring Jewels from: Bruce Whizin • Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi • Rabbi Everett Gendler • Dr. Eli Brent • Cantor Alberto Mizrahi • Norman Lear • Peter Yarrow • Daniel Callahan • Aubrey de Grey • Ido Kedar • Caine Monroy  from Caines Arcade • Herb Alpert • Ginny Mancini • Judith Light • Sarah Tuttle Singer • Rabbi Rachel Cowan • Rabbi Elaine Zecher • Sara Paasche-Orlow • Barbara Lazaroff • Dr. Joanne Lynn • Sarah K • Donna Shalala • Rabbi Sally Priesand • Rabbi Sara Hurwitz • Dr.  Suzanne Groah • Quincy Jones • Rabbi David Wolpe • Shimon Peres

A Note From Craig Dear Friends, These are the passions in my life which have no measure: empowering others, honoring creation, making beautiful music, building community…and my family is equal to them all. Jewels of Elul has become a remarkable balancing point in my life allowing me to empower, honor, create and build. And boy did we build! We more then doubled our daily subscribers and the Jewels were read on over 50 websites around the country including The JTA, Huffington Post and URJ. My sincere thanks to the 29 contributors who gave us the wonderful content for this years

Blessed are you, Adonai our G*d, Who illuminates the whole world with His glory. With these words we close our eyes and go into the dark. This is the end of the blessing Ha–Mapil, said after reciting the bedtime Shema. How strange – that as our conscious life goes dark, we thank G*d for illumination! Ah, but this is the blessing before dreams, which show us our lives lit up from within. Dreams are one–sixtieth of prophecy, says the Talmud. Yes! Dreams pull information from the future, messages from the soul, to help us fulfill the promises we made to

In 1991 my parents, lifelong members of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, were taken to Israel with the Union president, a gentleman named Steinberg, on his annual bonds mission.  My parents are not Jewish. I imagine Mr. Steinberg had worked through all the Jews and gotten down to the Irish–Italian Catholics on his staff. At the time, I was attempting to “Pray without ceasing,” an idea I had picked up from Franny Glass, a member of J.D. Salinger’s imitable Glass family, and the main character of the “Franny” half of “Franny and Zooey.” Twelve years prior, I had stopped drinking and started searching

I seek light by seeking lightness.  So much of life can be freighted, fretted.  There is a discipline in finding the buoyancy in at least one moment every single day.  I’ve had to learn lightness–how to find meaning, levity, even exuberance–in noticing the simplest seconds. There’s work in that: discovering how the tiniest joys can lift and shimmer: · A friend on a porch. · My family of four reading together in the same room. · Errands with my daughter. · Central Park on a scooter with my son. · Wine with my husband on a rare date. · The entire Sunday Book Review. · One line of

For the past few months, I have thought considerably about many of the blessings recited at the start of morning prayers, as found in a traditional Jewish prayerbook. In particular, I have wondered what precisely we hope to be thankful for in the blessing to God, “who gives sight to the blind.” This is seemingly in recognition of a process through which God continues a tradition from the very start of Genesis, of exposing the brightness of light from the darkest darkness of night. Practically speaking, how frequently do blind people regain eyesight? The Talmud in Berakhot 60b explains that

It was early September. My husband and I went on a high–speed car chase around the valleys and mountains of the Grand Tetons to capture a glimpse of the setting sun. With five minutes to spare before the spray of light turned dark, we found a spot nestled in a valley on the side of the road with no mountain crag to obscure our view. Simply the horizon, the setting sun, and majestic colors of miracle and awe. As we watched the spectacle before us, I heard a sound that I had never heard before. I rolled down the car window and saw

For good or bad, digital communication has revolutionized and transformed our lives. We are now not merely spectators, but active participants empowered to reflect what we see and feel.  In the past, only a privileged few had the ability to influence mass media and movements.  Nowadays, amateurs and casual users have the ability to contribute content and impact society. The seminal founders of photography found true meaning through everyday encounters. Alfred Stieglitz photographed his lovers, Henri Cartier–Bresson tried to freeze a “decisive moment.” Ansel Adams studied nature; for Louis Hein it was social reform, and Robert Frank looked for meaning

I lost my vision gradually throughout my childhood. In 1968, when I went to college, I was totally blind. The years since have been blessed with great people, with myriad challenges, and with remarkable opportunities. During these years, I have also been blessed with a story from the Bible, to which I have turned many times to remind me that seeing–true seeing, spiritual seeing, the seeing that matters–is seeing beyond. In the final chapter of Deuteronomy, we are on Mount Nebo. Moses is about to die. God shows Moses what he would not be able to see with his physical

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.  You make me happy, when skies are grey…”  Many years ago, when my children were young, I used to sing this folk song. I wanted them to believe that each of them was my sunshine, the focal light of my universe.  And I also needed to reassure and comfort myself in the simplicity of their being my shining suns. In just a few weeks, as we usher in the Kol Nidrei service, we will chant the words of Psalm 97, “Or zaruah latzadik–Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for those whose hearts

I am often asked, “What makes a great entrepreneur?”  My answer describes someone with an explosive combination of ideas, vision, drive, persistence, and something nearly impossible to describe—a spark, a light.  Our world advances because of human beings who are willing to take risks in pursuit of their ideas and their vision, who possess the “light” that allows them to turn their vision into our reality.  I do not think it is a coincidence that, of all the inventions of mankind, the light bulb is the symbol we equate to ideas and innovation. “The spark of an idea,” “the brightest

To understand the light, we must understand the dark.  For me, the dark is what people experience when they have lost their way on the long road of life. It happens to all of us. We lose our center and feel we have nothing to lean on.  We do not see the way to the future and our very presence feels fragile as we lose our connection to our roots. But it is important to note that at these times, we find ourselves in darkness, not blackness. In the darkness, we can still see shadows.  We need determination, perseverance, and

Though we might believe that we always want to seek the light, the truth is that sometimes we need a break. I learned this while visiting Iceland in June, when the sun barely sets for three hours a day. While it was great having a longer day—we enjoyed broad daylight at the beach at 11 p.m.–it was not always ideal. The sun was so bright at 3 a.m. that we needed to wear eyeshades at night to get any sleep. On the other hand, when winter arrives in Iceland, the people live in darkness for all but a few hours

From the time I was a child, my parents insisted that our family had a responsibility to make life better for those around us. Whether I was following my father on his medical rounds, marching with my mother for civil rights, or working as a counselor in a camp for kids with special needs, there has never been a time when I haven’t been trying to “seek the light” of a better world. I have had the privilege to serve two Presidents of the United States and to represent the 5th District of Illinois in the United States Congress. Now the people of Chicago have entrusted

It was dawn. My mother and I watched silently as the sun rose on a new day, the seventh day of my brother’s Shiva. My brother, Nadav Elad, had been an IDF soldier in one of the elite units of the paratroopers. We should have hated the sun, lighting up a world that seemed so broken to us now. Yet my mother gently laid her eyes on the view unfolding through the light, and with deep gratitude gave thanks for its existence. Light, she said, had witnessed Nadav’s presence in this world, as we have. And so now we are partners,

Dear God:  I’m sad…I’m seeking light. Why? Isn’t everyone seeking light? No. I am. I prefer to be happy. I understand what you seek. You don’t, though. I’m not seeking light? Dude: My eternal flame dances in your heart, emanating from your eyes and fingers, radiating through your voice, your action and every loving intention (lightning and thunder)…my light surrounds you as a glowing penumbral testament to the primordial atomic flash point from which you and all life promulgates eternal. [thunderous echo]. Whoa…That’s cool. But I feel awful. It’s the worst. Almost. It’s gotta get worser. Why? You’re running from it.  But when I’m in pain, I’ll do anything not to feel

“God is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth.” Qur’an 24:35 This verse of the Holy Book of Muslims has been elucidated upon by Muslim scholars for generations. My explanation is decidedly more pedestrian. I write in the month of Ramadan, withholding myself from food, drink, gossip and speaking negatively of others. My tongue is practicing peace in this most blessed of months. These days even as a professor teaching at a theological school, no discussions resonate more with me than my conversations with my five–year–old. As women we hold the hearts of our young ones dear to us,

President Reagan achieved peace through strength and restoration of the American dream. He believed in individual liberty and the natural rights of all men as endowed by our Creator. And more. Ronald Reagan was a decent, winning, humble, and honorable man who practiced the politics of principled compromise and personal courtesy, rooted in his religious worldview. In his farewell address, he recalled his major political theme, that America would forever be a Shining City on a Hill. This symbolic image was first imagined by John Winthrop, the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who, in citing the Sermon on the Mount, asserted

Where can we who walk in darkness find brighter light?  I suggest we look no further than to the preacher/poet, John Newton.  He was a former slave trader who saw the light.  Today he is best known as the composer of the hymn, Amazing Grace! Again and again in the Bible, we read the invocation, “Let me find grace in thy sight, O Lord.”  Find grace?  Perhaps most of us wait for grace to find us. And often it does.  When grace finds us, we come to see God’s sight is not the problem, but our insight:  I was blind but

The seeking of spiritual light is gained through having faith and trust in God.  Prayer provides the path, leading to inner strength and pushing us toward greater honesty with ourselves. With honesty comes clarity, as we come to see the truth of our condition.  We can then change what we can and accept what we can’t. Whatever it is that you have, you must make work for you.  In this way, we keep moving toward the light.  When we minimize our own talents, when we envy what others have, when we give in to despair, we choose darkness.  When we

In June of 2011 members of Jewish Social Justice Round Table shared their ideas on the Art of Seeking Light: Sometimes elusive, always there to be discovered. Stick with the task, elevate the vision.          Ruth Messinger, President, American Jewish World Service Balance the ideal with the possible, dream big, breathe, pause and continue the climb.          Elissa Barrett, Jewish Funds for Justice/Progressive Jewish Alliance Sometimes the light we yearn to see is not visible in the face of so much artificial light.  You can see it if you look with your soul.  You

Yehi Or-Let there be Light. L is for Light That I give and receive By teaching and sharing with others As we search for what we believe. Truth is: We all possess light, different kinds of light. Sometimes we share that light, sometimes we hide it, even from ourselves. Sometimes it’s hard to access…yet, every single day we face a remarkable challenge to let that light, our light, shine forth. Bringing light into the world is as powerful a declaration of moral purpose as any act a human being can undertake. We learn in our tradition that as night descended

On the day they were created, Adam and Eve sinned and were expelled from the Garden. As the sun set and the world grew darker they said, “Because of our sin, the world is ending.” They stayed up all night, praying to God. When the sun rose at dawn, relieved they said, “There is a path that the sun always follows. It goes down in the West and comes up again in the East. Perhaps it will do this every day for as long as we live.” Adam offered a sacrifice to God in gratitude for the gift of the

They say if you want something done right, give it to a busy woman… and I have found that to be true in my life. As the first Jewish woman elected to Congress from the state of Florida, I have been proud to represent my constituents in our state legislature and in the U.S. House of Representatives for more than 18 years. As Chair of the Democratic National Committee, I am so proud to help re-elect President Obama and elect Democrats throughout the country. However, the job that has always been the most important to me is my role as

When I was a teenager, I read every book I could find on meditation. Almost all of the books talked about enlightenment, which fascinated me. I thought it meant that if I meditated enough, something would suddenly change. I would see things differently, bend spoons, maybe even glow. As my meditation practice grew and deepened, I found myself uninterested in Judaism and fell in love with Buddhism. Still inspired by the idea of enlightenment, my understanding of it matured and changed to include more kindness and compassion and less about telekinesis. While spending a summer in India, I took daily

Talking about enlightenment — at least in spiritual terms — doesn’t come easily to me. My upbringing was totally, passionately, proudly secular. We “modern” Jews held no truck with the “old fashioned” types who went to temple, spoke to God, became “enlightened.” Except … I’m remembering one evening, back when I was five or so, when New York City — my hometown — experienced a blackout. As it happened, the blackout occurred during the most awkward time of my week: when my dad “returned” me to my mom, who had won custody after a bitter divorce battle. The handoff never

Light, ultimately, is an expression of oneness. Life, ultimately, is about yearning toward that oneness. There is an incredible story about a rabbi named Meir who lived 1,900 years ago. Rabbi Meir was a scribe. He meticulously wrote out the precious words of the Torah. Each letter was written with ultimate care. No mistakes were tolerated. But Rabbi Meir’s Torah didn’t look like everyone else’s. Right after Adam and Eve sinned and God cursed them, the Torah tells us: “God made coats of skin for Adam and for his wife…(Gen 3:21).” Rabbi Meir’s Torah read: “God made coats of light

Someone told me years ago that we musicians do our shows for free. The fee we receive, she explained, covers the OTHER 22 hours of the day. Planes, vans, lumpy pillows, filthy dressing  rooms: it’s not the glamorous life that people think. But I wouldn’t trade a moment of it. Occasionally, even in the harshest situations, a beam of pure light can reveal itself. I was in a dressing room one night in London. Graffiti adorned the walls—scribblings, obscenities and off-the-wall comments. My eyes wandered. Then I saw it. Three sentences written in faded black pen, old enough to lose

“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” ~ Leonard Cohen Once again Moses is wearing himself out carrying the burden of the Jewish people on his shoulders.  God intervenes by taking some of the spirit that is in Moses and sharing it with others.   How can this happen without diminishing Moses?  Commenting on Numbers 11:17, Rashi says, “He was like a light that is placed in a candlestick from which everybody lights his lamps, and yet its illuminating power is not diminished.” I love to seek the light of holiness by studying sacred texts or