When I was growing up, one of my younger brothers and I shared a bedroom.  Only two years apart, our relationship was typically fraught with arguments, both verbal and physical. I recall tricking him, knocking him off the top of the bunk bed and him...

The sky is blue. Everyone learns that at a very young age. The sky is blue, the grass is green, and the clouds are white. When you draw your parents a picture to hang on the refrigerator, you scribble green squiggles on the bottom and blue ones on the...

With Thanksgiving and Hanukkah fast approaching, this time of year seems to get hectic for everyone. Parents are calling family members, making travel arrangements, going to the grocery store, pulling out that old recipe for the perfect dessert, going...

One of the challenges that is facing the Jewish community today is reaching out to the unaffiliated and the disaffiliated — the people within the Jewish community who are counted but cannot as yet be counted upon as resources or as beneficiaries of...

This week’s Torah portion includes the death of both Sarah and Abraham, a matriarch and patriarch. In this spirit, I would like to reach out to all of those who have recently lost someone, and to anyone who is currently observing a yahrzeit.I would...

No Torah section may be more intellectually puzzling, more emotionally disturbing, and more polarizing then Genesis 22, known as “Akeidat Yitzchak,” “The Binding of Isaac.” For a deep and lively spiritual and intellectual encounter with friends...

Torah Portion: Lech Lecha, Genesis 12:1-17:27 The Eternal said to Abram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1.) …what is most striking here is the indeterminacy of the journey....

Gratitude.  It is a value that we inculcate in our children from early on.  When they receive a gift, they are told to say “thank you.”  Later, we teach them to write a thank you card.  Gratitude is a basic social necessity and nicety.In this...

During this season of the Jewish High Holidays, it is our responsibility to do tshuvah (repentance).  Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur there are 10 days called Aseret Yemei Tshuvah or the Ten Days of Repentance.  It is this time when we focus on...

Today, all of you are standing before the Eternal your God…in order to establish you this day as God’s people and in order to be your God…  I [God] make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing...