Esther’s Ruach HaKodesh
Life is filled with crossroads that rarely have signs to mark the way. Each person must find the God–serving truth that applies to this unique circumstance and this moment in time.
Turning Wisdom into Oral Torah
Our Written Torah is fixed and final. Its sequence of letters, spacings, stories and commands is sacred and static. A scribal error of even a single letter invalidates the entire scroll. Its authority derives from its constancy. Our Oral Torah is the opposite—it is always changing and expanding. Not a second passes that does not leave it enriched by some new insight discovered in that moment somewhere on the planet. The Oral Torah lives and evolves.
This Year…. Next Year….
Is there such a thing as a “free gift,” and is it something to pray for and believe in?
DIALOGUE WITH DESTINY (reprint)
The Midrash on Esther presents free will and determinism as the central theme of our Purim tale.
RUACH HAKODESH, A PARTNERSHIP
In ruach hakodesh, the person who’s assuming the role of boots on the ground is the initiator and decision maker. They choose a goal, mission, problem or project and pursue it with action and prayer.
Post October 7th: Zohar on the “Three Cries” as a Model of Trauma
There are a million ways to make space for new light. But sometimes the light coming through is just bigger than who we are in the present. The Zohar characterizes that tribulation as a serpent shedding its skin.
Post October 7th: Anger Drives the Plot
Survival has required us to perfect the capacity to transform the intensely concentrated lights that scatter like shrapnel from anger’s discharge; to digest these pellets, extract their nutrients, and convert their death-wish into life juice.
Addiction and Higher Teshuvah: Rosh HaShana 2023
You might be surprised to hear that addiction is as old as humanity itself…literally.
Tisha B’av Video by Sarah Yehudit Schneider, 2023
Explores the metaphoric question of, “Does God cry?”
A Tisha B’Av Excerpt from “Dark Matters of the Soul: The Kabbalah of Shame”
Shame is the first emotion mentioned in the Torah, the Talmud extols its dark influence, and Maharal calls it the most powerful motivating force in the psyche.
Fifteen Stages of the Pesach Seder
Is there such a thing as a “free gift,” and is it something to pray for and believe in?
Pesach Through the Years
Pesach teachings over the years (2003-present.)
Worlds, Souls, Divinity: Purim 2023
This is a teaching about prayer as conveyed by the Komarna Rebbe
SHADOWS AND LIGHT: CHANUKKA 5783/2022
Chanukka lights bring healing to the corruptions of power that surround our light and lively Chanukka observance.
Video: Sarah, Sarai, Yiska
Sarah is the Matriarch of the Jewish people. Tradition ascribes superiority to her Divine Inspiration over Avraham’s.
The Dust of Their Skirmish Reached to the Throne of Glory: Sukkot 5783
The “dust” of Yakov’s epic battle with Essav reached to the Throne of Glory and is the force behind the Jewish people’s success in business, war and Torah study.
Solemn Joy, Sweet Sorrow
When Tisha B’Av—the day for mourning the woes of our nation—falls on Shabbos—our day of spiritual delight when it is generally forbidden to mourn.
The Temple for Which We Are Supposed to Yearn
On Tisha B’Av we mourn the loss of our House of Holy Presence (aka Bet HaMikdash). But what is it, really, that we are missing?
A TEACHING FOR THE FAST OF TAMMUZ
This Torah of Atzilut is what we received at Sinai, but forfeited when we betrayed its calling.
Malchut Sh’b’Malchut
To describe the king as “entangled in the tresses” is to assert that there is a level of G-d that is entangled by our conceptions and projections of Him/Her/It.
“This Opposite This” HaShem Made the World
The whole drama of geopolitics comes down to “who eats who?”: In the end, whose narrative is going to prevail, and absorb everyone else into its story line.
Shame and Sinat Chinam: Tisha B’Av 2021
This is a video of Sarah Yehudit’s teaching on Tisha B’Av evening after Chana Yaffe’s beautiful Eicha reading. Below that is an audio file (no video) of the talk. Audio recording of Sarah Yehudit’s Tisha B’Av Teaching https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/SSV_Downloads/Tisha.b.av_2021_SY.mp3
Videos of Sarah Yehudit’s Tisha B’Av Teaching 2020
Video and Audio for teaching and discussion.
Sifra, Sefer, Sippur
The Torah is really three in one: the Torah of Bereshit, the Torah of Sinai, and the Torah of souls. Our job is to unify these three Torot with every word we speak and breath we take.
A Kabbalistic Kavanna for Eating Matzah at the Seder
Pesach 2021 / 5781 by Sarah Yehudit Schneider Matzah on Pesach is a powerful remedy that penetrates to the soul’s depths and heals ancient wounds.