Blog entries

A River Runs Through It - Part 2

rafael@maaleh.org — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 04:52:39 +0100

(...continued)

Ben steered with his oars and called out paddling commands from his perch above us on the back of the raft. I expected we would go down the middle of the river, but he immediately takes us from one side to the other. He then directed us to the first of the rapids. I then realized it is not just how you go into a rapid, but from where you apprRead More...

A River Runs Through It - Part 1

rafael@maaleh.org — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 01:36:39 +0100

This past week our family took another summer pilgrimage to a northwest mountainous location. Our goal was to gain some rest, some altitude and perspective on life as we know it. Our playground was the Glacier National Park region of northwest Montana. This is one of the most magnificent areas of the country I've ever witnessed. We scheduled several actRead More...

We Met Him at the Mountain

rafael@maaleh.org — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:19:02 +0100

Last week the days of the omer were coming to a close as we prepared for Shavuot, the marriage at the mountain. Our sages tell us that when the Children of Israel came to Sinai, Hashem married his people and with the words of Torah as the Ketubah. Our evening Shavuot service was followed by ice cream and cheese cake, but we were just getting started. The men then assembled over at the beit midrash and we setup for an all night Torah study. Through the morning we Read More...

Walking from Redemption to Revelation

rafael@maaleh.org — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:58:29 +0100

It feels like the chagim(holy days) within our community are getting better and better. Shavuot has just ended but I feel it so connected with our community Passover Seder. Due to some limitations with our synagogue kitchen, it had been several years since we had a public Passover Seder. This year we were blessed with a generous donation and some labor of love which enabled us to upgrade the kitchen to handle a larger crowd. Our Passover was full of song and story, kids sRead More...

A blog for the sake of Heaven

rafael@maaleh.org — Tue, 12 May 2009 07:00:00 +0100

A little introduction

I do not like to write. The thought of starting a blog brings me back to the horrors of my high school English classes. At my very core I am an engineer who can solve a problem in a variety of computer programming languages, but who quakes when asked to be creative in writing. At my very core I am also tasked with being a spiritual guide who is trying to help a small group of people navigate down a rather tricky river here in the northwest. Read More...