For a long time, I was angry at religion for its own sake.
And don't get me wrong, the thing is full of irrational beliefs and oppressive ideas.
But I'm coming to appreciate over time how, like almost all things,...
We're currently in family therapy, all nine of us and two parents. Even with sessions being 90 minutes long, that gives each of us 8 minutes a week to talk about what is most important to us, assuming the therapist doesn't talk at all. (spoiler: she does)
When I left religion, I lost the reason to get out of bed in the morning.
Aish had the only reason, and I left it behind. No longer was I doing God's work. No longer was I saving the Jewish people, keeping the...
"Judaism is not all or nothing," they preached at Aish Essentials. "Do what you can, God appreciates it all, every bit counts.
Except, word on the street was that when you entered Intermediate I, Motty Berger had a class where he explained that it...
Everybody should —in their lifetime consider death, To wonder what it will be like to go to sleep and never wake up. the contemplation of death, and the acceptance of death, is very highly generative of creative life. - Alan Watts
In my hypnotherapy practice,...
Why must drag our next generation through the dregs of the holocaust?
So that it doesn't happen again? Baloney.
It's happening right now. It could happen again in a heartbeat. And if it happened to anyone else but your own...
“I’m poly,” I wrote her. “So it’s complicated.”
“How come I’m only finding out now?” She wanted to know. “Most poly people put it in their profile. I am not poly.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I forgot to add it.”
After my last post went Shalom Tzvi level viral (as defined by the odds in which someone shared it with my grandparents), lots of people emerged from the woodwork. And they had a lot to say, being people and all.
They wanted me to...
I was back in Aish Hatorah.
I guess like positivity childhood memories that resurfaced after I'd dealt with parental trauma, my subconscious felt I was ready to find some good beneath the wreckage.
The building was even bigger and more...
Recent Netflix productions like Unorthodox and My Unorthodox Life have been painting Orthodox Judaism in a shitty light, and prompting a wave of defensive responses on social media, a la enlightened Orthodox Jews like Rabbi Doniel Katz and such.
A sample defensive post...
Even More Freidom
Spoken Word
One of my favorite memories of all time is a simple one. Reuven Karasik and Tehila Ben Kalifa came...
On Compassion
It’s hard to be compassionate when you’re afraid. And charedim are afraid of everything. Of...
Musings on Religion
https://soundcloud.com/shalom-tzvi-shore/with-alex-shandrovsky
Recently, in light of recent events, a friend of...
Pimply Kid
“The will of God is so,” explains the The Kiruv Rabbi in the most non-condescending...