Open Search form

Kabbalah

Apply for a Blog

Hande Gençünal

Aug 30, 2026, 5:03 PM

What Ten Days Conceal, on Aseret Yemei Teshuvah

We call these days the Ten Days, we always have. But when I counted, I found only seven days between the end of Rosh Hashanah and the start of Yom Kippur. To reach ten, you have to fold in...

Aug 26, 2026, 4:58 AM

Rabbis Have a Moral Imperative to Use AI

Why Rabbis Should Use AI This High Holy Day Season Every year around this time, rabbis begin disappearing. We disappear into books, notes, drafts, abandoned openings, half-finished sermons, deleted paragraphs, and the peculiar anxiety that comes with knowing that more people...

Hande Gençünal

Aug 23, 2026, 6:44 AM

A Cry or a Laugh on the Real Name of Rosh Hashanah

Preparing for Rosh Hashanah this year, I noticed something, the name I always use isn't one the Torah ever uses. The Torah itself never once calls this day Rosh Hashanah. It only calls it Yom Teruah, the day of...

Juan Marcos Bejarano Gutierez

Aug 17, 2026, 12:07 AM

From Maimonides to the Conversos

Visitors to Congregation Zohar Yisrael, where I serve as rabbi, sometimes notice my ambivalence toward an overemphasis on Kabbalah. Perhaps this reflects what I have observed among some descendants of Conversos who encounter Judaism and find themselves mesmerized by...

Hande Gençünal

Aug 16, 2026, 6:59 AM

A Name That Came Back From Exile, on Elul

Most of the time, saying a month's name, we don't think about what it carries inside it, we just say it and move on. This year, saying Elul, I stopped. And stopping, I saw that the word itself, like...

Aug 10, 2026, 3:44 PM

Elul: The Yud of Coming Home

After the hidden goodness of Av, the Jewish calendar begins one final movement before the awe of the High Holy Days. It comes quietly. There are no dramatic miracles. No revelation at Sinai. No shattered walls. There is only a call. We...

Hande Gençünal

Aug 9, 2026, 6:43 AM

Israel, The Name That Outlived Ruin

This is the black granite Merneptah Stele, discovered by Flinders Petrie in Thebes in 1896 and dating to the reign of Pharaoh Merneptah. It contains the earliest known written reference to the name Israel. The line that is commonly translated as “Israel is laid waste, its seed is no more” appears in the hieroglyphic text in the lower section of the stele. One particularly important detail is that Egypt refers to Israel as a people rather than as a city or kingdom. The stele is now displayed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

When we look at a name, we usually stop at its meaning and go no further, rarely asking where it came from. I prefer the opposite, tracing a name back to its root, because a name often hides more...

Aug 6, 2026, 5:49 AM

Messianic Light: The Astounding Unity of Torah and Science

For centuries, academics have divided knowledge into increasingly specialized disciplines. Physics studies the movement of matter and energy. Psychology studies the mind. Sociology studies group behavior. Theology concerns itself with God. The majority of researchers stay within their narrow...

Hande Gençünal

Aug 2, 2026, 4:54 AM

Shin, The Letter Two Sources Tell Differently

In Kabbalistic tradition, letters are never treated as mere linguistic tools. Among the twenty-two letters, Shin (ש) carries some of the most layered readings. But those layers don't always agree with each other, sometimes they pull against one another,...

Hande Gençünal

Jul 26, 2026, 6:42 AM

Borrowed Garments, Buried Dead on Tu B’Av

I described the longing I feel walking through Jerusalem in my last piece, being among the stones without ever quite arriving at the city itself. Six days after Tisha B'Av, the same calendar now asks the opposite question. Can...

Load more