Shabbat “Beyond Time” and the Physics of Time

Shabbat “Beyond Time” and the Physics of Time

This article examines the concept of Shabbat as “beyond time” (le-ma’alah min ha-zeman) through a sustained engagement with Zoharic Kabbalah and Hasidic thought, followed by a carefully delimited bridge to Richard Feynman’s physics of time. Beginning with the Zohar’s architecture of “two Shabbatot” and its association of the upper Shabbat with the sefirah of Binah, the analysis traces how Hasidic masters—including the Maggid of Mezritch, R. Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl (Meor Einayim), R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, R. Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, the Sefat Emet, and the Mei HaShiloach—transformed Zoharic metaphysics into a lived phenomenology of temporal transcendence. Drawing on the scholarship of Arthur Green, Elliot Wolfson, Michael Fishbane, Eitan Fishbane, Moshe Idel, and Rivka Schatz-Uffenheimer, the article reconstructs a coherent Hasidic theology of Shabbat-time. It then offers Feynman’s treatment of relativity and the path-integral formulation as analogical—not identical—resources for understanding why “one linear story” is not the deepest description of reality, either in physics or in the mystical apprehension of sacred time.

Trees, Divine Presence, and Higher Power

Trees, Divine Presence, and Higher Power

Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree (1964) has long been read as a simple parable of unconditional giving and human desire. This comprehensive analysis proposes a far deeper reading: the tree as an embodiment of the Shekhinah, the feminine aspect of divine immanence in Kabbalistic theology, whose boundless generosity mirrors the mystical dynamics between God and creation. By juxtaposing this Kabbalistic reading with the spirituality of the 12-Step Program—the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous and related recovery movements—this essay explores fundamental questions about divine-human interaction, selfhood, ethical responsibility, and the nature of therapeutic transformation. Drawing extensively upon recent scholarship in Jewish mysticism, contemporary therapeutic theology, and integrated frameworks for understanding Shekhinah consciousness in clinical practice (1-3), we demonstrate how these seemingly disparate paradigms illuminate complementary aspects of spiritual engagement with forces beyond the self. The analysis synthesizes insights from Lurianic Kabbalah, Chassidic psychology, phenomenological approaches to healing, and clinical applications of mystical concepts to develop a comprehensive framework for understanding both literary allegory and lived spiritual practice. We propose that both The Giving Tree and 12-Step spirituality represent variations on fundamental human experiences of dependence, transformation, and encounter with transcendence, though they diverge significantly in their theological assumptions, anthropological implications, and practical applications. The integration of these frameworks offers rich resources for contemporary therapeutic practice, addiction treatment, and spiritual direction.

Blackstar: Symbol, Withdrawal, and The Refusal of Consolation

Blackstar: Symbol, Withdrawal, and The Refusal of Consolation

David Bowie's Blackstar represents far more than a farewell album; it constitutes a profound meditation on mortality that resonates with the deepest currents of Jewish mystical theology. This analysis examines Bowie's final work through the interpretive frameworks of Lurianic Kabbalah, post-Holocaust thought, and the phenomenology of sacred presence-in-absence. The album's refusal of consolation, its staging of ritual without guarantee, and its insistence on the dignity of opacity all echo theological traditions that have grappled with divine concealment (hester panim) and the presence of the sacred within suffering. Drawing on the tzimtzum doctrine of divine self-contraction, the Shekhinah theology of divine presence in exile, and contemporary frameworks of hermeneutic medicine, this essay argues that Blackstar offers a model for confronting mortality that neither falsifies death's opacity nor abandons the human need for meaning. The work emerges as a form of sacred art that creates space for what we might call 'Being-With-Nonbeing'—a discipline of presence that transforms existential terror into embodied reverence.

Beyond the Garments: the Grammar of Divine Names, Human Projection, and the Post-Holocaust Condition

Beyond the Garments: the Grammar of Divine Names, Human Projection, and the Post-Holocaust Condition

This essay develops a Jewish process theology grounded in the principle אֵלָיו וְלֹא מִדּוֹתָיו ("to Him and not to His attributes"). Beginning with Exodus 6:3, it traces the evolution of divine naming from the Hebrew Bible through rabbinic interpretation, Kabbalah, Hasidism—especially the theology of the Lubavitcher Rebbe—and post-Holocaust Jewish thought. Drawing on the scholarship of Moshe Idel, Michael Fishbane, Elliot Wolfson, Joseph G. Weiss, and Eli Rubin, the essay argues that divine names function as historically conditioned interfaces between divine presence and the human psyche. While divine essence remains inaccessible, revelation unfolds relationally within history, trauma, and ethical demand. This trajectory yields a distinctively Jewish form of process theology capable of sustaining faith after catastrophic rupture.

Divine Names, Human Psyche, and the Emergence of Process Theology

Divine Names, Human Psyche, and the Emergence of Process Theology

This study examines the theological, psychological, and mystical dimensions of Exodus 6:3, wherein God declares to Moses: "I appeared to your ancestors as El Shaddai, but by My name YHWH I was not known to them." Far from a simple historical marker distinguishing patriarchal from Mosaic religion, this verse emerges as a hinge text that anticipates what modern theology would term "process thought"—the understanding that divine-human relationship unfolds dynamically through history. Drawing upon biblical scholarship, classical midrash, Kabbalistic hermeneutics, modern process theology, and post-Holocaust thought, this essay argues that divine names function not as static descriptors of an unchanging divine essence but as relational disclosures calibrated to the evolving psychological and spiritual capacity of humanity. The transition from El Shaddai to YHWH charts a movement from divine containment to divine exposure, from promise to presence, from assurance to encounter with rupture and ethical demand. This trajectory, already implicit in biblical and rabbinic sources, reaches full articulation in the work of post-Holocaust theologians who understand God as suffering history's catastrophes alongside humanity. The essay integrates the hermeneutical insights of Michael Fishbane, the historical scholarship of Moshe Idel, the philosophical analyses of Elliot Wolfson, the mystical interpretations of Shaul Magid, the Hasidic scholarship of Joseph Weiss, and the theological synthesis of Louis Jacobs.

The Sacred Marriage and the Messianic Consummation

The Sacred Marriage and the Messianic Consummation

This essay traces the hermeneutic transformation of the Song of Songs from ancient erotic poetry to the theological foundation of Chabad-Lubavitch messianism. Beginning with the canonical tensions between peshat and derash that have animated Jewish interpretation since antiquity, we follow the trajectory through which erotic imagery became the privileged vehicle for expressing the most intimate dimensions of divine-human encounter. The midrashic identification of the Temple as marital chamber, elaborated through Kabbalistic theosophy into a cosmic drama of sefirotic union, provides the conceptual architecture upon which Hasidic and ultimately Lubavitcher thought constructs its eschatological vision. Central to this analysis is the development of Shekhinah consciousness—the evolution of divine presence from biblical dwelling motifs through Kabbalistic systematization to its contemporary manifestation in therapeutic and healing encounters. Drawing upon the work of Moshe Idel, Elliot R. Wolfson, Shaul Magid, Andrea Weiss, Eli Rubin, and my own research on the therapeutic space as locus of divine indwelling, this study argues that the messianic theology of the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe represents not merely a continuation but a radical rupture within this trajectory—a hermeneutic move that transforms anticipation into proclamation, futurity into presence, and the bridal chamber of exile into the consummated union of redemption.

The Wagons of Indictment

The Wagons of Indictment

This essay offers a theological-critical reading of the Zohar's interpretation of the wagons (agalot) sent by Joseph to Jacob in Genesis 45:27, arguing that the Zoharic text functions not merely as narrative exegesis but as an indictment of patriarchal failure.

Drawing upon Rav Shagar's post-modern theology of rupture and absence, I contend that the wagons encode an accusation: Jacob sent Joseph into danger without adequate protection, violating the fundamental ethical obligation of levaya (accompaniment) that underlies the law of eglah arufah. This reading challenges hagiographic interpretations of Jacob and instead locates him within a framework of culpable silence—the failure of parental responsibility that generates trauma without recourse to repair.

The essay extends this theological critique to the events of October 7, 2023, when the Nova Music Festival massacre occurred on Simchat Torah while diaspora communities danced in their synagogues, unaware that Israeli youth were being slaughtered in the fields near Re'im.

I argue that our liturgical celebration at that precise moment constitutes a spiritual eglah arufah—a case of blood spilled while the elders were occupied elsewhere. This represents not merely historical tragedy but theological scandal: the absent father replicated in the absent God, the failure of the patriarch mirrored in the failure of the community.

Revelation and the Conquest of Demonic Forces

Revelation and the Conquest of Demonic Forces

This essay examines the radical mystical theology of revelation articulated in the Meor Eynayim, the seminal Hasidic commentary composed by Rabbi Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl (1730-1797). Through careful textual analysis of the parashat Yitro sections, this study argues that the Meor Eynayim fundamentally reconceptualizes Torah not as a corpus of texts requiring intellectual mastery but as an experiential mode of divine knowing—da'at—that emerges through and within the vessel of sacred fear (yirah). The essay demonstrates how this reconceptualization challenges conventional understandings of free will, repositions the encounter at Sinai as an ongoing cosmic drama, and provides a therapeutic framework for conquering what the text terms the "demonic forces" (sitra achra) that impede human flourishing. Drawing upon the work of Arthur Green, Elliot Wolfson, and other contemporary scholars of Jewish mysticism, this analysis situates the Meor Eynayim within broader kabbalistic and Hasidic trajectories while highlighting its distinctive contributions to Jewish theological anthropology. The essay concludes by exploring the implications of this mystical hermeneutic for contemporary approaches to religious experience, spiritual formation, and the healing arts.

Neither Object Nor Abyss

Neither Object Nor Abyss

Jewish theology sustains a persistent tension between two spiritual grammars: personal encounter with God as an addressable "Thou," and mystical union in which the self is attenuated or absorbed into an impersonal infinite. This essay argues that while rational Orthodoxy protects divine personalism through transcendence and restraint, and Kabbalah often radicalizes transcendence into theosophical or absorptive mysticism, Hasidism—particularly in its existential and devotional streams—reorients mystical depth toward relational responsibility rather than dissolution. Drawing on classical scholarship in Jewish mysticism and Hasidic studies, and extending these insights into the domains of clinical ethics and addiction recovery, the essay proposes that the I–Thou relation constitutes not merely a theology of prayer but an ethical discipline of presence. In therapeutic contexts, this discipline manifests as tzimtzum, sacred not-knowing, and the refusal of premature explanation—practices that preserve the irreducibility of the patient as subject. The twelve-step recovery tradition is examined as a parallel spiritual trajectory in which the "Higher Power" evolves from an external, interventionist deity toward an internalized source of wisdom and moral orientation. The I–Thou relation is thus reframed as a foundational ethic for relational medicine and transformative recovery, capable of sustaining meaning, responsibility, and human dignity under conditions of suffering and uncertainty.

Psalms: Prayer, Praise, and Tikkun

Psalms: Prayer, Praise, and Tikkun

The Book of Psalms (Sefer Tehillim) stands at the center of Jewish devotional life, shaping religious psychology, liturgy, and spiritual imagination for over two millennia. Psalms are simultaneously literary, musical, therapeutic, communal, mystical, and theological. This essay argues that Psalms constitute a uniquely Jewish mode of prayer that transforms emotional life into sacred language, enacting a process of tikkun—repair or restoration—on the psychic, communal, and cosmic planes. Drawing on biblical scholarship, rabbinic theology, medieval and kabbalistic traditions, and modern psychology, this work examines the Psalms as a technology of meaning-making, identity formation, trauma recovery, and divine encounter. Particular attention is given to Rabbi Nachman of Breslov's Tikkun HaKlali—the ten psalms he designated as a comprehensive remedy—and its relationship to contemporary therapeutic practice. The paper integrates concepts of therapeutic tzimtzum, Shekhinah consciousness, and hermeneutic medicine to propose that Psalmic prayer functions as a form of what might be termed 'linguistic surgery'—operating on consciousness through sacred language to restore wholeness where fragmentation has occurred. The analysis concludes by exploring how the Psalms create a grammar of hope that sustains the Jewish imagination through exile and rupture, proposing that Psalmic prayer remains one of Judaism's most enduring engines of spiritual resilience.

Sacred Healing, Shattered Vessels

Sacred Healing, Shattered Vessels

The struggle with compulsive behavior has been addressed by human communities throughout history, though the frameworks for understanding and treating such struggles have varied dramatically across cultures and eras. In contemporary Western society, twelve-step programs—particularly Sex Addicts Anonymous (SA) and Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA)—have emerged as primary resources for those seeking recovery from sexual addiction. These programs, descended from Alcoholics Anonymous, offer a structured spiritual path toward sobriety and psychological healing. Yet within traditional Judaism, particularly in the mystical tradition of Breslov Hasidism, an alternative framework for addressing sexual compulsion has existed for over two centuries: the Tikkun HaKlali and its associated practices of Tikkun HaBrit (rectification of the covenant).

Surrender as Ontological Revelation

Surrender as Ontological Revelation

This essay examines Rabbi Rami Shapiro's theology of surrender as articulated in Surrendered—The Sacred Art (2019) and Recovery—The Sacred Art (2009) in dialogue with the Kabbalistic dialectic of being (yesh) and non-being (ayin). Drawing upon the author's published work on powerlessness as ontological revelation, therapeutic tzimtzum, and the yechida as Higher Power, this analysis argues that Shapiro's "uncovery" framework and his Taoist-inflected understanding of surrender find both resonance and productive tension with the specifically Kabbalistic vocabulary of bittul (self-nullification), ayin (sacred nothingness), and the five-fold soul structure of Jewish mystical anthropology. While both approaches reject naive theism and locate the ground of recovery in interior depths rather than external intervention, they diverge on questions of theological particularity, practical methodology, and the relationship between surrender and recognition. The essay concludes by proposing a synthetic framework wherein surrender constitutes not merely a psychological relinquishment of control but an ontological revelation—the collapse of the illusory yesh of constructed selfhood into the generative ayin from which authentic being emerges.

The Yechida as Higher Power

The Yechida as Higher Power

This essay articulates a distinction between my formal theological work—which engages the scholarly apparatus of Elliot Wolfson's phenomenology, Jonathan Eybeschütz's radical mysticism, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe's teachings on divine concealment—and my personal, experiential understanding of 'higher power' as it functions in spiritual practice. While my academic writing explores the objective metaphysics of tzimtzum, the dialectic of being and non-being (yesh and ayin), and the theological implications of divine contraction for post-Holocaust thought, my lived spirituality locates the 'higher power' not in the transcendent Ein Sof but within the innermost dimension of my own soul: the yechida. This essay explores how these two registers—the theological and the personal—relate without collapsing into identity, arguing that the yechida represents both the divine spark within and the authentic locus of spiritual contact that recovery and contemplative practice require.

Cosmic Sound, Sacred Number, and the Architecture of Musical Consciousness

Cosmic Sound, Sacred Number, and the Architecture of Musical Consciousness

Music occupies a paradoxical space in human culture and consciousness. It is simultaneously material and immaterial, scientific and spiritual, mathematical and ecstatic. Every civilization throughout human history has sought to explain why music moves us so profoundly, why it organizes emotion with such precision, and why it appears to resonate with something beyond the merely physical world. In the Classical period of Western civilization—stretching from the Pythagoreans through Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and into the medieval scholastics—music was understood not merely as an art form or entertainment, but as a metaphysical principle. It corresponded to nothing less than the architecture of the cosmos itself.

The Wellsprings of Embodied Wisdom

The Wellsprings of Embodied Wisdom

This essay traces the conception of wisdom (chochmah) as arising from bodily organs other than the brain—particularly the kidneys, heart, and viscera—across biblical, rabbinic, Kabbalistic, and contemporary theological frameworks. Beginning with the biblical anthropology that locates conscience and moral discernment in the kidneys (kelayot), we follow this embodied epistemology through its midrashic amplification in the figure of Abraham, whose kidneys "flowed with Torah," into the Kabbalistic reframing that positions the kidneys within the sefirotic architecture of divine emanation. Drawing extensively on the scholarly apparatus assembled by Natan Slifkin in his monograph "The Question of the Kidneys' Counsel," this study examines how medieval authorities from Rashi to Ramban to the Italian Renaissance grappled with the apparent conflict between rabbinic physiology and emerging medical science. The analysis then connects this ancient wisdom tradition to the contemporary framework of embodied theology, demonstrating how the therapeutic encounter becomes a site where somatic wisdom emerges through the dynamics of tzimtzum, Shekhinah consciousness, and hermeneutic medicine. Against Cartesian dualism and biomedical reductionism, this essay argues for a return to the biblical intuition that the body itself is a knowing subject, capable of generating revelation from its hidden depths.

From Grammar to Theography

From Grammar to Theography

This essay traces the hermeneutical evolution of the Hebrew particle et (אֵת) from its Talmudic origins as a tool of grammatical amplification to its mystical transformation in the Zohar as a cipher for the Shekhinah, culminating in contemporary phenomenological readings that understand et as divine inscription itself—the wounded writing of God's self-limitation. Through analysis of the exegetical traditions of Nahum Ish Gam Zu, Rabbi Akiva, and the Zoharic corpus, alongside Elliot Wolfson's phenomenology of divine embodiment, this essay argues that et represents not merely inclusion or presence, but the traumatic mechanics of tsimtsum: the contraction, wounding, and self-differentiation through which the infinite inscribes itself into finite form.

The Pain of the Shekhinah

The Pain of the Shekhinah

This essay traces the theology of divine suffering through the figure of the Shekhinah—from rabbinic midrash through medieval Kabbalah to contemporary phenomenology and clinical application. Drawing on Elliot R. Wolfson’s analysis of divine pain in Lurianic sources and Chassidic teachings on divine immanence, we argue that the Shekhinah’s exile constitutes not merely a theological metaphor but the structural condition of embodied existence.

The primordial wound of tsimtsum (divine contraction) inaugurates creation through divine self-limitation, birthing both world and evil through an originary incision in the Infinite. The Shekhinah, as the feminine hypostasis of this wound, descends into material exile where her pain becomes the site of redemptive encounter. We demonstrate how this theology challenges Cartesian dualism, informs hermeneutic medicine, and offers resources for post-Holocaust thought. Through integration we develop an embodied theology where suffering becomes a locus of sacred presence and the broken body a text demanding interpretive wisdom.

My Heart Tells Me

My Heart Tells Me

This essay examines Rashi's hermeneutical declaration ve-libi omer li ("my heart tells me") in his commentary on the priestly ephod (Exodus 28:4) and the Lubavitcher Rebbe's theological elaboration of this moment, arguing that together they articulate an epistemology of embodied intuition directly applicable to clinical medicine.

Through close textual analysis of Rashi's commentary, the Rebbe's discourses in Likkutei Sichot (Volumes 26, 31) and related Hasidic sources, alongside contemporary scholarship on the ephod's material construction and cultic function, this study develops a phenomenological framework for understanding clinical intuition as sanctified knowledge. The analysis integrates classical Jewish exegetical sources with modern medical literature on diagnostic reasoning, clinical judgment, and the role of intuition in expert practice.

Freedom as Awareness

Freedom as Awareness

This essay examines one of the most enduring theological paradoxes in biblical literature—the hardening of Pharaoh's heart—through the interpretive lens of the Me'or Einayim of Chernobyl (R. Menachem Nachum Twersky, 1730–1797), a foundational text in early Hasidic thought. The biblical narrative presents a profound dilemma: if God hardens Pharaoh's heart, how can Pharaoh be held morally accountable for his refusal to release the Israelites? This apparent contradiction between divine determinism and human free will has troubled exegetes across centuries, generating diverse rabbinic, philosophical, and mystical responses. The essay argues that the Rebbe’s reading offers a radical reframing of the problem by transforming it from a moral question into a metaphysical revelation about the nature of consciousness, concealment, and divine presence.

The Lonely Man of Faith at Sixty

The Lonely Man of Faith at Sixty

Published amid the 1960s' ferment—Jewish renewal in America, interfaith overtures post-Vatican II, and the shadow of scientific hubris—The Lonely Man of Faith diagnosed the modern believer's plight with unflinching empathy. Its prose, blending midrashic exegesis with existential phenomenology, elevates doubt as piety's crucible. I was a heady 15 when I first read this as an adolescent searching for religious meaning in London. It was the first articulate expression of the secular religious divide haunting my intellectual vs spiritual selves. This review traces the text's exegetical brilliance, its cultural evolution, and the multifaceted critiques from modern Jewish scholars—including Jonathan Sacks's communal redemption, Reuven Kimelman's interfaith caveats, Irving Greenberg's cooperative expansions, Eugene Borowitz's reformist pushback, and David Novak's public theology. Ultimately, I argue that while Soloveitchik's dialectic illuminates faith's poignant isolation, its disembodied abstraction risks pathologizing the human condition; my theology of embodiment—drawn from clinical phenomenology and mystical Jewish traditions—resists this schizophrenia, positing the body as the covenantal nexus where majesty and humility converge in incarnate wholeness.