Chava's Favorite Links

Rabbi Chava's Favorite Links

More coming soon! Check back often.

Friends, there are so many great resources on the web - what a connected world. It is my honor to share some of my favorite places with you.

Bahle's of Suttons Bay
Need cool duds for summer or a special event? Visit my husband Karl's family store Go shop at Bahle's!

The ALEPH Alliance for Jewish Renewal web site offers programs, resources and links to some of the best Jewish teachings in the world.

Favorite Sites on Jewish Mysticism/Kabbalah
There are some sites that offer teachings on Kabbalah, but it is worth being very careful and selective about where you put your faith in this area. Here are some sites that are truly credible:

Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg's web site

KabbalahOnline is a rich site with wonderful resources.

Chabad Lubavitch offers excellent text resources.

Rabbi Friends
I'll be adding links to my favorite rabbis' web sites soon!

The Purple Plate
What if there a simple tool you could bring to your family that would bring greater love, peace and understand to all your relationships?
The dinner table is the perfect place to begin living a life of blessing.
That's a picture of the creator, my friend, Jolynn holding a purple plate.

Click here to read about the magic of the Purple Plate and how you can bring this spiritual practice to your life!

YouTube Faves
I have some wierd and interesting faves on YouTube. Mostly inspiring music, but also some excellent Bugs Bunny videos and a doc on Harold Lloyd, silent film star.

What I'm Reading This Week
Not that what I am reading is of greater interest than what others are areading - I just get asked this a lot. I mostly read spirituality related books, but lately I have also been re-establishing a relationship with fiction. Some of it is a little saucy for a cleric, but there you go.

Shooters and Chasers by Lenny Kleinfeld. I haven't read a lot of great cops and chase stuff in years, but I am so glad I made my re-entry with this book. The characters are bright and compelling, and I literally could not put the book down as I got to the last few chapters. Interestingly, the main character is a non-theistic cop of partially Jewish descent, so that was loads of fun. Also since I work in Chicago once a month, it was fun read about places down there in the big city. This one would make a great movie too. (Hope that is not an insult to the author - it is well written fiction.)
Who can resist too any book that has a Comp Lit drop out in it? As wife of a Comp Lit ABD, I was enthralled.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kid.
I realize I am very behind because this one is already a movie too, but I listened the unabridged version of this book on CD and just finished it today.
I found it compelling and deep. Of course I found some of the stuff on the Sisters of Mary most interesting, but I felt very touched by story, and the knowledge that we all carry stories in our hearts that shape who we are.

The Shack by William P. Young.
I had some mixed feeling about this book. I am generally not a fan of philosphy/religion explorations clothed in fiction. Most writers cannot successfully sustain the veil of the fiction well enough to keep things moving. That said, I was moved by parts of this fiction narrative.

I did not dig the explanation of Jesus being homely because "he is Jewish, after all" and the book was typically myopic in its depiction of "the Law" (code for Judaism?) as narrow, pedantic and irrelevant.

At the same time, I love anyone who will dare to depict God in stunning paradigm-shifting ways, here, as an African American woman. Bravo and about time.

What I did get from this book was a few days of deep and constant contemplation about God that reinvigorated me. I am thinking of writing a Jewish response to "The Shack" called "The Snack" about God as a deli owner who dispenses Kabbalistic gems along with a CB on rye.

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