THIS MONDAY I began,  a two-part series of classes called “The Mystery of Jewish History.

LIFT UP THEIR heads? Why not just say, “Count the people”? Because that is the goal of counting people, to say that they count, that they are special, unique, and knowing that tends to lift a person’s spirit. After all, didn’t God already know the total of the Jewish people before they were even counted? He could have just told Moshe the number to write down and we would not have been the wiser.

WRITER’S BLOCK IS a real thing for some. There are an infinite number of ideas in the world, and yet a writer can feel as if they have lost access to all of them.

SOMETIMES YOU CAN be somewhere noisy, but one particular noise stands out and makes you focus on it. For example, I was once at an airport in a busy, very noisy boarding area, when some man lost his temper with the flight attendant and let her know in no uncertain terms. Within a moment, hundreds of people went quiet, shocked by the man’s screaming.

This Thursday is Lag B’Omer, b”H. It is the day we are told on which Rebi Shimon bar Yochai died, but not before revealing the Zohar to his most trusted students. The Zohar, which means “brilliance,” is one of the main kabbalistic works to this day. While some have questioned the Zohar’s authenticity and accuracy, most kabbalists today do not, especially post-Arizal.