November 24, 2025 · 7:30 am

Chana and Rafa

by Helene Berton (Centereach, NY)

Flipping over the tape, I clicked the play button and smiled when “Modern Love” came through my headphones. David Bowie was the best flying music, I decided. 

After finding the pack of gum in my overstuffed bag, I offered a stick to my mother and then unwrapped one for myself. While chewing exuberantly, I waited for my ears to snap, crackle and pop as we started our descent. Reluctantly, I clicked the stop button as the Sony Walkman couldn’t compete with the noise of the plane. “China Girl” would have to wait. China, my thoughts wandered, was the other side of the world. But then again, so was Israel, and that’s where we landed.

I looked at my mother. Even after the overnight flight, she was brimming with excitement. Why was this trip so important to her? 

*  *  * 

The girls with their machine guns slung across their backs startled me, gave me pause. I snapped a picture of them, lost in thought, winding to advance the film before taking another. 

Like a tourist, I was gaping at them as if an attraction. “Are they in the army?” I whispered to my mother.

“Yes, the IDF,” she replied as we walked down the bustling Tel Aviv street.

“I’m surprised so many girls want to join.”

“It’s mandatory. Everyone goes directly from high school into the military,” she explained to me.

Mandatory? I thought of myself after high school graduation planning my great escape to college. All the stress and drama of roommates, meal plans, and boyfriends dominated my life that summer before I left. I heard my voice complaining that I had to take the bus when most of my friends had cars of their own. Meanwhile, these girls were nonchalantly strolling along with their machine guns, chatting in the sunshine with their cups of coffee. I suddenly felt small.

*  *  * 

“Tell me again who they are?” I asked my mother as we sat down at the round table. The ceiling fan above us did little to cool the restaurant.

“My cousins.”

“How are they related to us?”

My mother looked at me for a moment longer than necessary. Maybe she had explained it already or assumed that I knew. “Your grandfather came to the United States from Latvia when the war broke out. His brother, Uncle Max, went to Israel. These are his daughters.”

I digested this information, trying to form the family tree in my mind. Having no first cousins of my own, I couldn’t relate very well. I felt disconnected, distracted by the heat. I squirmed in my seat, tempted to ask the waiter to turn up the AC. Looking around at the open windows and archways leading into the garden, I realized there was no air conditioning at all.

“That must be them.” My mother stood up as two older women entered the restaurant. 

I was surprised by their age, having pictured them younger. How were these women my mother’s cousins? Realizing that my grandparents had my mother late in life, I put it together. It was as if a generation was missing, but it did add up.

The introductions were made, complete with hugs and kisses which left me feeling awkward, bringing out the shyness I had battled since childhood. I did not know these women, after all. 

I sat quietly as the conversation swirled around me, looking at the food that the cousins had ordered for us. I picked at the unfamiliar meat and sauces presented to me, wishing for a slice of pizza and chips. My mind drifted to the shops we had passed in Tel Aviv as I made my mental list of who would be getting which souvenir. Maybe I would indulge in the boots I saw in the window display or even the leather jacket. I had some money saved from my new job.

Noticing my mother’s sudden look of sadness, I listened in, hoping to catch onto the conversation without embarrassment. 

“I’m so sorry,” she said, as I tried to pull up the dialogue that might still be hanging in the air or my recent memory. 

“Yes, he was killed in the war,” Chana said, looking serious. “He was my youngest.”

Her son? Killed in the war? I brushed aside all thoughts of shopping and started listening. I felt like I should say something.

“I’m so sorry,” I quietly offered condolences to my cousin. 

She looked at me then, and I couldn’t quite figure out the expression. Was it distaste or was I taking on a feeling of inadequacy? I felt like a spoiled child, and I didn’t like it.

After lunch we stepped out to the garden to take some photographs under the archways. I placed my hands on the cool limestone, letting my sense of touch help me file away the moment into my memory. My mother wrapped up the conversation with more hugs and kisses while I took in the views of the rolling countryside. It was quite beautiful just a short drive from Tel Aviv. I hadn’t expected such green lushness. But then again, I didn’t know what to expect, as I really hadn’t done any of the research.

*  *  * 

“Did you enjoy meeting the cousins?” my mother asked me in the cab as we rode back to the hotel.

“I did,” I forced out, with an overly high pitch to my voice. I hoped my mother didn’t notice. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the get together other than it gave me a lot to think about. I was ignorant on too many topics, falling short on contributing to the conversation. 

Looking down at my brightly polished nails and fringed boots despite the heat, I felt foolish. I looked at my mother who carried on a one-sided conversation with me and I started listening. For real.

*  *  * 

Present day…

I bring the photo album and carefully balance it on my mother’s lap as she sits in her wheelchair. My two sons sit on either side of her, their cell phones on their laps but remaining untouched for the moment. I see a glimpse into the future, the day when they both have children, possibly daughters, who would be cousins. How heartbreaking if they never know each other. I finally understand the dynamic of cousins.

They look onto the photos covered in sheets of plastic with their undivided attention. 

My mother points from face to face, announcing names questioningly. 

“Cousin Chana?” she asks. 

“Yes,” I smile encouragingly. 

“And Rafa?” 

“Yes, Rafa.” 

“And this lady?” She places a long fingernail on her own image. “Who is she?”

“That’s you,” I say, not for the first time that day.

Native New Yorker Helene Berton has returned to her love of writing after a long hiatus.  She has two short story collections, Away from Home ( https://a.co/d/czXOPef) and Beyond the Parallel (https://a.co/d/1SViCZj), available on Amazon. Currently, Helene is working on her first novella, Red Means Stop, and a children’s picture book, The Big Race. If you’d like to learn more about Helene and her work, visit https://heleneberton.wordpress.com .

Author’s Note: My story explores the dynamics between mother and daughter, a common theme in my writing.  It was inspired by and takes place during my first trip to Israel in 1987.  There is a bit of a naivety portrayed, which is how I felt as a young American girl visiting Israel (somewhat immature and self centered), but it was a wake-up call.  The trip changed my outlook, inspiring me to fall in love with the country.  I was fortunate enough to visit a second time several years later, and both my sons experienced Israel through Birthright.  It is my hope to return once again.

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November 17, 2025 · 7:30 am

Matchmakers

by Steve Pollack (Woxall, PA)

“I met your mechuteneste today,” my mom’s father stated, as if a simple matter-of-fact. All of us recognized that Yiddish word, but something wasn’t translating. Poppy’s eyes announced a playful intent and he unfolded the story like a riddle. Soon, we learned that Poppy had visited the mother of his grandson’s girlfriend. 

I was dating 16-year-old Linda Donecoff for about a month, when I offered her my mezuzah, originally a bar-mitzvah gift. Linda tied a “lover’s knot” in the sterling chain, which made it way cooler. We tied up our parents’ phone lines, discussing nothing more substantial than what to do that week-end. We were discovering our relationship, not contemplating marriage, not ready to be intimate. Linda’s senior prom was not penciled on our calendar.

A girlfriend is not a partner blessed by sacred vows, not a betrothed—her mother not really a mechuteneste! Yet, Poppy was confident in a destiny no one else around our kitchen table could foresee. Life experience and the faith he wore, comfortable as a vest, taught him patient optimism. Linda and I were “going steady” for three, maybe four months, when he decided to meet my other half in the person of her mother.

Attired in sports jacket with buttoned vest, creased hat atop silver white hair, Reuben Mazer carried himself in a posture that fooled a diminutive stature. Stretching his legs, greeting neighbors on his way, he was known as “the Mayor of Oakland Street”, not because he won an election or had political ambitions. Words of this humble tailor soothed us at stressful moments: “Don’t worry, everything will press-ach-oyes!” 

At that kitchen-table-moment in 1964, Mom collected her thoughts and inquired further, “Did you just go to her front door, uninvited—knock like a peddler?”

Poppy volunteered that he had approached her house the previous week, but “her gotkes were hanging out”. That word less familiar, but Poppy clarified, “it was her cleaning day”. He observed a bathroom rug airing out a second story window, and postponed meeting the woman who he predicted would be his daughter’s mechuteneste. 

Seated around the faux-marble table, we all begged in accidental unison: “PLEASE, Poppy— tell us the whole story!” We savored his news of the day like the evening meal. Poppy revealed he had walked to the Donecoff’s home at 7275 Rutland Street, a handful of streets away. Observing no gotkes, he considered it a good day to knock, and introduced himself as Steven’s grandfather. Miriam Donecoff had no hesitation inviting a well-dressed elderly gentleman into her home, even though her husband was away at work.

How Poppy knew the exact address we didn’t ask. I don’t recall that detail during our frequent nighttime chats. Our relationship was close as twin beds. Had I confided the nearest corner—the block —the family name? I imagine Poppy politely stopping a stranger: “Can you tell me in which house the Donecoff family lives?” 

To my Mom and Dad, each born in America, his bold pilgrimage was unthinkable and intriguing. Perhaps, Mom was envious of his initiative. She had been asking me about Linda for weeks, hinting that I invite her for Shabbat dinner, but tiptoed a nuanced ballet on that subject.

To Poppy, informed by old-world se’khel, an intuition to push things forward, this was a normal call of the family patriarch. He was no peddler selling rags. This was the sociable way of checking the household where his grandson’s girlfriend lived. He noted only positive impressions, and believed our attraction was bashert.

In Miriam, he discovered a gregarious hostess whose infectious laughter could vibrate a room. She was delighted to sit with him in her velvet, forest-green living room. Poppy liked this woman, a balabusta in charge of her neat household—a woman who also arrived by boat to America and found his visit not at all bold. Miriam welcomed the opportunity to share a glezel tei and discuss the kinder. Since first meeting her daughter at a Sweet Sixteen party across narrow Rutland Street, she placed me at the top—a respectful college bokher, a nice Jewish boy with a charming Jewish grandfather! Reuben Mazer’s visit, no doubt, enhanced her evaluation of me. 

Miriam and Poppy had each suffered loss that could not heal. They trusted neither bitterness nor fairy tales, but believed in happy endings. They understood the meaning of bashert. Throughout history, difficult circumstances often compelled decisions. Poppy made us believe that everything will iron out; that meant to be will find a way. We make choices. We change our minds. Call it random chance or coincidence, if you prefer. Fate is a gem of many facets. 

Linda & I, and the generations before (or after) us, would never be born, but for a perfectly aligned sequence of disconnected events—necessary one to the next. We regret not knowing folks who never boarded a boat, those before our immigrant grandparents. From bleached beginnings, people identified only by names passed forward, or those in Biblical narratives—their experience somehow inhabits my bones and my psyche. Blessings most fine sift through an intricate mesh. 

  ***

Poppy passed away the following Spring, within weeks after witnessing Linda & I off to her high school formal, dressed as if atop a tiered buttercream cake. He did not see us four years later, at my college graduation or under the chupah. Miriam lived another ten years, enough to count toes of her first grandchild.She and Poppy had adapted the art of shtetl matchmaking to a modern American model.

Linda still keeps the mezuzah, my first gift for her, in a jewelry box filled with precious gems, none as bashert. I recognize meant to be only in hindsight. Now, we have new names, Bubbe & Zayde, old names we choose to honor. Though our lives are profoundly different than parents and grandparents, we celebrate many flowering branches. We kvell with ancestors, and call upon Poppy’s satin chutzpah, Miriam’s bottomless laughter, as our grandchildren search their destinies.

Editor’s Note: A much longer version of this story appeared under a different title in The Jewish Literary Journal in April 2022. It’s reprinted here with the permission of the author.

Steve Pollack hit half-balls with broomsticks, rode the Frankford El to Drexel University, sailed the equator on the USS Enterprise. He advised governments, directed an affordable housing co-op, built hospitals, science labs and public schools. His poetry has recently appeared in  Schuylkill Valley Journal, Jewish Poets Collective, and Keystone: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania. His chapbook, L’dor Vador–From Generation to Generation, was published by Finishing Line Press. He was named the 2025 Montgomery County (PA) Poet Laureate. He volunteers on the One Book One Jewish Community team sponsored by Gratz College and sings bass with Nashirah: the Jewish Chorale of Greater Philadelphia. He and Linda live in suburban Philly, where they celebrate their 56th wedding anniversary on November 2, 2025. 

To read more and Steve Pollack and his work, visit: Steve Pollack Montgomery County poet laureate and From generation to generation: l’dor v’dor

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November 10, 2025 · 7:30 am

Collecting Languages

After White Squares by Lee Krasner (USA) 1948 *

by Barbara Krasner (Somerset, NJ)

I won a Hebrew contest once,

not because I understood

the text blocks reading right to left,

            although I knew zeh meant “this”

            and ha meant “the”

but because I understood the random

algorithm of standardized testing

and that I couldn’t color in

too many D choices with my No. 2 pencil.

I won Honorable Mention

in a German Declamation contest once playing

a Hausfrau in Wolfgang Borchert’s “Die Küchenuhr,”

my hair in pink curlers, wearing my mother’s housecoat

on the Rutgers stage, the only top contestant

who did not speak German at home.

As a teen, I performed “Tri Medvedya,”

the “Three Bears,” to get eighth graders

interested in taking Russian classes

at the high school.

            Odna devoshka poshlya v lecu i zablyudilas.

            A girl went into the forest and sat down.

I took Greek classes from a Rutgers professor,

            So much based on the aleph bais of Hebrew

            Even the Russian kukla for doll

Czech lessons in Prague,

            Where I recognized from Russian

            Infinitives k’ pti to drink and plakat to cry

tried French with Rosetta Stone.

            L’éléphante est dans l’avion

The elephant is on the airplane

But it was my frustration with not knowing

my grandparents’ Yiddish that led me

to formal classes, to confront what little

I knew, what little I had absorbed,

robbed of linguistic heritage

by immigrant grandparents

who died too soon.

Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a PhD in Holocaust & Genocide Studies (HGS) from Gratz College, where she teaches in the HGS graduate programs. The author of two poetry chapbooks and three novels in verse, her work has appeared in Jewish Literary Journal, Tiferet, Minyan, Jewishfiction.net, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She serves as Director, Mercer County (NJ) Holocaust, Genocide & Human Rights Education Center.

* Editor’s note: This poem–an ekphrastic poem–was inspired by Lee Krasner’s work, White Squares. To view Krasner’s artwork, visit: https://whitney.org/collection/works/504

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November 3, 2025 · 7:30 am

Two Yahrzeit Candles

by Miriam Bassuk (Seattle, WA)

February 17th, my mother’s Yahrzeit.

I realized I had forgotten to light 

the candle for my father on February 11th.

They died years apart, my father at 62,

several months before his early retirement,

my mother at 92, a mainstay in my world. 

My father and I remained estranged.

He missed so many chances to be part 

of my life—never came to my wedding, 

my college graduation, or celebrated

the birth of our daughter, his only grandchild.

February 17th, I lit two candles chanted

the Kaddish for both parents, holy words 

in Aramaic that are deeply etched 

in every synagogue service. This ritual 

binds me to my ancestors, sends shivers 

down my spine as I reckon with shame 

at the growing distance from my father. 

There’s no accounting for the candles’ 

wax or for the duration of their burning. 

One candle with barely a flicker, 

while the other still flares two days later.

Who’s to say for which parent the candle 

burns brighter?

Miriam Bassuk’s poems have appeared in Snapdragon, Borderless, 3 Elements Review, and The Jewish Writing Project. She was one of the featured poets in WA 129 project sponsored by Tod Marshall, the Washington State poet laureate. As an avid poet, she has been charting the journey of living in these uncertain times.

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October 27, 2025 · 7:30 am

Hear, O Israel

by Leséa Newman (Holyoke, MA)

And these words which I command you today shall be upon your heart.

–Deuteronomy 6:6

A man

A 90-year-old man

A 90-year-old Jewish man

A 90-year-old  Jewish man walking

A 90-year-old Jewish man walking briskly

A 90-year-old  Jewish man walking briskly through his neighborhood

A 90-year-old  Jewish walking briskly through his neighborhood for his daily exercise

A prayer

A 4,000-year-old prayer

A 4,000-year-old Jewish prayer

A 4,000-year-old Jewish prayer printed

A 4,000-year-old Jewish prayer printed carefully 

A 4,000-year-old Jewish prayer printed carefully on a scroll  

A 4,000-year-old Jewish prayer printed carefully on a scroll rolled inside a mezuzah

A mezuzah of gold 

With a six-pointed star

Hanging around his neck

For seventy-seven years

A present from his parents

To connect him

To protect him

Worn upon his heart

Every day since he became a Bar Mitzvah,

A man at age thirteen

Standing proudly on the bima

Chanting loudly from the Torah

All those decades ago

Snatched

Yanked

Snapped

Stolen

The sudden theft

Leaving him bereft,

Stunned, and shaken

By what has been taken,

His veiny fist pressed

To his curved bony chest,

What has always been there

Now nothing but air.

(For Stanley)

Lesléa Newman has created 87 books for readers of all ages including the memoirs-in-verse, I Carry My Mother and I Wish My Father, the novel-in-verse, October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard;  and the children’s books, Gittel’s Journey: An Ellis Island Story, The Babka Sisters, and Ketzel the Cat Who Composed. Her literary prizes include two National Jewish Book Awards and the Sydney Taylor Body-of-Work Award. Upcoming books in 2026 include the children’s books, Song of the Dead Sea Scrolls; Welcome: A Wish for Refugees; and Something Sweet: A Sitting Shiva Story. For more information about Lesléa, visit her website:  www.lesleanewman.com .


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October 20, 2025 · 7:30 am

Daffodils and Nuns (1957)

By Annette Friend (Del Mar, CA)

Daffodils, ridiculous, happy flowers with
small pinched faces in yellow or orange
gaze innocently at the world haloed
by petals like the yellow habits of nuns.

A day off first grade, I was dusting wine bottles
in Pop’s liquor store when black-cloaked nuns
with pinched white faces and fleshy foreheads 
pressed into white bands shuffled into Pop’s store.

The bells over the door chimed their welcome,
but I didn’t see heaven, only over-sized
penguins with huge silver crosses blazing
like lightening across broad chests.

I remembered my mother’s warning
never to enter a church where nuns 
might steal a Jewish child and
a story foraged from the forests

of Poland that told me of priests 
inciting pogroms at Easter from 
their pulpits, and I ran up the stairs
to Pop in the backroom, screaming,

“Nuns, Nuns, here in our store!”
Pop touched a finger to my lips,
held me close in his arms, said,
“They’re only here collecting charity,
money for Saint Mary’s down the street.”

No matter where my fears first blossomed,
I know I would have preferred nuns in yellow
and orange habits. Maybe I would have even 
given them the quarter I had buried deep in 
the pocket of my red overalls.

Annette Friend, a retired occupational therapist and elementary school teacher, taught both Hebrew and Judaica to a wide range of students. In 2008, she was honored as the Grinspoon-Steinhardt Jewish Educator of the Year from San Diego. Her work has been published in The California Quarterly, Tidepools, Summation, and The San Diego Poetry Annual.


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October 13, 2025 · 7:30 am

Our stories forever intertwined

by Lillian Farzan-Kashani (Santa Monica, CA)

How many more tears

do I have left for a home

I’ve never been?

Longing to see where my mother

played when she was just

a daughter.

The other boys left as my father,

named after Elyahu, ventured into the water, 

seen as dirty, I’m afraid, his name a tricky thing to hide.

And where my grandfather took a routine beating

on the way to school for being a Jew

in Tehran.

How many more tears

do I have left for Palestine?

They say thirty percent of the deaths are children alone.

Aid distribution a catastrophe,

a needlessly fatal obstacle course for the hungry.

How can the extremists live with themselves?

I hear the stories, read the poems,

and feel changed. Please don’t look away

for too long.

We must know

the horror

to alter it.

Suddenly, reservoirs of tears

I thought had emptied

appear replenished.

How many more tears do I have left to cry

for the hostages– their families, the honorable peace builders–

even that poor dog, killed.

From Be’eri to DC, followed by chants of “Free Palestine!”

This–this is not how you liberate,

though I myself have no answers beyond love.

That is the antidote I hold onto tightly

mistakenly thinking I could leave it

to the political experts.

How many tears do I possibly have left

listening to one of the survivors

after all she has lived through on her kibbutz lately.

Vehemently stating how unwelcome the PM is

like a bad word, I do not wish to give his name

the time nor the space.

Of course the last thing on earth she would want to do

is pose with him. What— for optics?

You really want to discuss the optics right now?

How much longer will I be chained to the news

eagerly awaiting the latest episode of Amanpour?

This is my least favorite addiction.

But who else can I trust?

Am I supposed to go about as normal?

The whole of it has been tossed upside down, to be reductive.

Trying to gather a morsel of control:

listen, dialogue, donate, organize, protest, build peace.

Rinse, Repeat.

While my family and my love hide in the mamads.

Bombs where there should be falling stars

over your home and mine.

Giving way to a day when we share

the bounty of olives,

laugh over Turkish coffee, the irony.

Together in the shuk

bound, our stories

forever intertwined.

Lillian Farzan-Kashani is an Iranian American and Jewish therapist, poet, and speaker based in Los Angeles, CA. Much of her work is rooted in being a child of immigrants and is reflective of her intersectionality. Read more about her professional and creative pursuits at https://www.lillianfarzan.com/

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October 6, 2025 · 7:30 am

How I See God: In the Breath, the Body, and the Movement of the World

By Alvin Raúl Cardona (Northfield, IL)

People often ask me where I feel closest to God. Of course, one of the main places is in my synagogue, when praying with a minyan, and when I’m surrounded by community. But outside of that, I also feel deeply connected to God when I’m practicing Kung Fu, when I’m teaching a student to move and breathe with intention. When the body, mind, and spirit are aligned in a single, purposeful act. During these times, I feel the Divine clearly, powerfully, in the breath, in the body, and in the beat of the world around me.

I didn’t always have the words for it. As a young martial artist, I simply knew something was happening beneath the surface, something deeper than technique or strength. I felt a current, a presence, a kind of electricity running through me. With time, and through learning with my rabbi, I discovered a name for it: “Ein Sof”, the Infinite. God’s light. God’s energy. The Life Force that sustains all things. It changed how I moved, how I teach, and how I live.

How I See God

So how do I see God in daily life?

I see God in the morning when I’m wrapping my tefillin.

I see God when I say Shema Israel, but I also see God in the way the afternoon sunlight hits the floor of my studio.
I see God in the breath of a nervous student who finally finds calm.
I see God in the stillness after training Kung Fu, when the body is at rest but the soul is wide awake.

This is why I teach. Not just to show people how to defend themselves, but to help them reconnect with what’s already inside them: their breath, their balance, their light, their soul. To remind them that they are vessels of sacred energy, a vessel that houses the Divine spark within.

Moving with purpose helps deepen that connection. It’s important that we connect with the Divine and awaken our inner sense of being.

God Is in Everything and Everywhere

In Jewish thought, we don’t believe God is confined to one place or one moment. God is everywhere and in everything, in every place, in every moment, and in every breath.

I believe that our role as Jews is to bring holiness into the world. We need to just stop for a moment and be fully present. Think about what we’re about to do, and if possible, say a blessing over it. Whether you’re about to eat something, go on a trip, or you’ve just woken up in the morning, stop, and make it holy. That simple act of awareness can transform an ordinary moment into something special.

When we pause and say a blessing over bread, over wine or over the washing of our hands, we’re not just performing ritual, we’re awakening the Divine energy already present in the moment. We’re recognizing that holiness isn’t something distant. It’s right here, if we’re paying attention.

The same applies to movement. When I step onto the training floor, it’s not just to work out. I take a minute and I make a blessing. As Jews, we have blessings for everything. I stop and I thank God for allowing me another day to train. I especially don’t take this for granted after undergoing quintuple bypass heart surgery.

(Here’s the link to that story if you’d like to take a peek: Tai Chi for Healing: My Journey to Recovery After Open-Heart Surgery)

After that blessing, I become more aware of the space around me and my movements. Focusing on the present and recognizing that Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu (The Holy One, Blessed be He) is always present.   

The Body

Too often, people separate the spiritual from the physical, as if God belongs only to the mind or the soul. But the Torah tells us that God breathed life into us. Not ideas but breath.

In Hebrew, the word for soul is Neshamah, which comes from Nasham to breathe.

That breath lives in the body. So, when I stretch my limbs, when I feel my feet grounded to the earth and my spine rising tall like a tree, I’m not just doing Kung Fu, I’m recognizing that this body is a vessel for something holy. That movement itself can be a form of connection, a way to align with the Divine energy flowing through all things.

This is about awareness. You can call it energy, Divine presence, consciousness, or chi. What matters is that you feel it. That you tune into it. That you allow it to guide your movements and open your heart.

Sometimes, you just have to inhale deeply, exhale slowly, and remember you are alive and that the Divine spark is within you.

Flowing

In Kung Fu, there’s a moment when everything clicks. You’re not thinking. You’re not forcing. You’re just flowing. The breath steadies you. The world quiets down. And in that silence, you feel it, that presence, that light, that flow.

That’s a connection to something greater than oneself.

The Divine is not always loud. Sometimes, it’s as soft as the space between your breaths.

Wisdom

As a Sephardic Jew, I see the world through the stories of great Kabbalists, Rabbis, and the members in our community. Their teachings have been passed down through generations to guide us.

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan once wrote that meditation “loosens the bond of the physical, allowing the practitioner to reach the transcendental, spiritual realm and attain Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Breath or Wind).” In many ways, this is exactly what happens when movement and breath become unified in practice. It’s not just exercise, it’s a doorway to something higher.

The Ramban (Nachmanides) taught that a person should “not separate his consciousness from the Divine while he journeys on the way, nor when he lies down nor when he rises up.” To me, this means our entire lives, from our most sacred rituals to our smallest routines can be filled with Divine energy.

The challenge is to stay aware. To remember.

That’s the essence of Kung Fu.
That’s the path of Torah.
Constant refinement. Constant connection.
Making the ordinary holy.

So the next time you ask where to find God, try this:

Close your eyes.
Take a slow breath in.
Feel your body as it is in this moment.
And listen, not for a voice, but for the stillness beneath all sound.

That’s where God lives.
Right there.
In the breath.
In the body.
In the beat of the world.

Alvin Raúl Cardona is a Sephardic Jewish storyteller, martial artist, and sommelier from Chicago. He holds a B.A. in Communication, Media, and Theatre and a Master’s in Journalism. A 9th-generation Eagle Claw Kung Fu master, he teaches Tai Chi, Kung Fu, and meditation in Northfield, Illinois, and is currently writing a self-healing book based on the principles of Tai Chi and meditation.

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September 29, 2025 · 7:30 am

Is God at my diner?

By Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

This Rosh Hashonah

I did not go to services.

I did not pray 

with the congregation.

I did not walk 

up to the Ark.

Instead, I went for my morning coffee

at the local diner.

Was this a crisis of faith?

I don’t think so.

God sat at the next table over

watching me, making sure

I was all right.

He’s OK with me 

ordering my usual fare

while I assure Him 

my belief is constant and true,

whether I’m reading a

prayer book or a menu.

The practice of religion

may be communal,

but it is also deeply personal,

I think, as I sip my hot coffee

and know with certainty

that in the coming Yom Kippur

I will be inscribed

wherever I happen to be.

Mel Glenn, the author of twelve books for young adults, is working on a poetry book about the pandemic tentatively titled Pandemic, Poetry, and People. He has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years. You can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy, edited by M. Jerry Weiss. If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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September 26, 2025 · 7:30 am

Unetaneh Tokef

by Theresa Werba (Spring City, PA)

Oh God, I am so afraid.

The future looms before me, unknown.

I fear what I do not know,

cannot know.

I fear your power over my fate.

You’re going to judge me, so I must speak of the

sacred power of this day.

I pray for mercy and truth,

because you are the judge

who knows, and sees all.

What will you write, and seal?

How will you record, and count?

What will you remember, of all 

I have forgotten?

I love books, but the Book of Remembrance

I fear, as it reads itself aloud.

What will I hear?

What has my hand signed?

The sound of remembrance!

The shofar— loud, penetrating,

piteous, strong, strange,

elemental, earthy, and

yet of spirit— but within myself

will I hear your still, small voice?

Will I rush forth with angels,

seized with trembling and terror

as they proclaim, “Behold, The Day of Judgment”?

Will I be judged as angels?

Will you judge me as a shepherd does

his sheep, passing, counting, numbering,

decreeing my living soul, my nefesh,

its destiny?

B’Rosh Hashanah yikateivun,

Uv’Yom Tzom Kippur yechateimun.

Oh righteous God,

will I live? Will I die?

Do I have an appointed time?

Will I drown? Will fire consume me?

Will I be stabbed? Will an animal destroy me?

Will I starve? Will I die of thirst?

Will the earth shake? Will malady decimate me?

Will I be stoned? Or burned?

Will life be peaceful, or will I suffer more?

Will I be poor, or rich?

Will I be brought low, or raised up?

I worry about all these things, and yet,

You give me some control over my fate,

because I can turn to you, pray to you,

and do good in the world,

wherein you may alter the course,

alleviate the punishment,

change the decree of my future.

And so I stand, expectantly,

in the New Year,

knowing that I have atoned,

trusting in your judgments,

though I do not understand them, or you, or why.

And I try to be less afraid of the future.

B’Rosh Hashanah yikateivun,

Uv’Yom Tzom Kippur yechateimun.

Theresa Werba is the author of eight books, including What Was and Is: Formal Poetry and Free Verse (Bardsinger Books, 2024), Finally Autistic: Finding My Autism Diagnosis as a Middle-Aged Female (Bardsinger Books, 2024) and Sonnets, a collection of 65 sonnets (Shanti Arts, 2020). Her work has appeared in such journals as The Scarlet Leaf Review, The Wilderness House Literary Review, Spindrift, Mezzo Cammin, The Wombwell Rainbow, Fevers of the Mind, The Art of Autism, Serotonin, The Road Not Taken, and the Society of Classical Poets Journal. Her work ranges from forms such as the ode and sonnet to free verse, with topics ranging from neurodivergence, love, loss, aging, to faith and disillusionment and more.  She also has written on adoption and abuse/domestic violence. Werba is the joyful mother of six children and grandmother to seven. Theresa holds a Master of Music with distinction in voice pedagogy and performance from Westminster Choir College and is known for her dramatic poetry readings. She is a member of Beth Israel Congregation in Eagle, Pennsylvania where she will be singing “Aveinu, Malkeinu” for the high holidays. 

You can find more about Theresa Werba and her work at www.theresawerba.com and on social media and YouTube @thesonnetqueen. 

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