Photo Spiritual Journeys

Walking in the footsteps of the ones who came before
Seeing what they saw.
 Experiencing what they experienced.
 Thinking what they thought.
 Feeling what they felt
 Knowing what they knew

 Living now

It was the year I was ordained as a Rabbi and Teacher. The place was the lecture room on the top floor of the library of the Hebrew Union College (HUC) in Cincinnati, Ohio. Professor of Philosophy, Doctor Alvin Reines was conducting his class in the history of philosophy in general and how ideas affected Jewish thinkers. He was speaking about trends and schools of thought in the 19th and 20th centuries when I asked this question: “Dr. Reines, who were the Jews throughout our history who changed the paradigm of thought?” Dr. Reines considered the question and his response and said: “Moses, Rabbeinu (our teacher), Moses Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, Baruch Spinoza, Karl Marks, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein.”

A cool tremor went through my body. The only thing I heard after that was the pounding of my heart. I knew the truth when I heard it. That list was seared into my being, no need to write it down. It was within me forever.

Years later, after studying and dreaming, after years of rabbinic experience and after becoming proficient in the fine art of photography, I set foot on the continent of Europe to test myself (some might say: to discover myself) while following not one of the personalities mentioned in the list above, but one who had communicated with me spiritually, Rabbi Joseph Caro (Karo), who lived in the 16th Century. Strange as it seems, he spoke to me and I knew I had to follow his footsteps from Toledo to Lisbon to Selonica to Nikople to Edirne to Constantinople to Safed. And I did. For five weeks I wandered about looking for those visual clues that enabled this mystic and author of the Shulchan Aruch, The Set Table, known as the Code of Jewish Life, to create his greatest works and accomplishments.

How I found him and where and the result is the rest of this story.