He was accustomed to the close reading of texts, but on that day he sat with eyes that had never seen before and watched words on the page before him grow legs and dance, legs became wings, and words flew off the page like pigeons off of cobblestones.  On...

For the last two years in which I was enrolled in rabbinical school, I served a small congregation every month located in the heart of Cajun Country: Lafayette, La.  Located as it was near the Gulf of Mexico, the residents of Lafayette ate a lot...

At times, our purpose or direction in life may be less clear than others. There can be many influences that can cast a pall over our existence, taking us to murky places we may not choose to go.  When clouds of uncertainty cause us to remain stationary,...

For most of my life I have inclined towards a philosophy of universalism. From my earliest years, I understood our Jewish tradition as teaching that each human being is created B’tselem Elohim, in the Divine image, and that all human beings are equally...

Ki Tissa opens with God telling Moses to take a census of the Israelite people. Each shall contribute a half shekel. The wealthy should not pay more nor the less fortunate less. We read about details involving the priests as well as the commandment to...

Name tags: one either loves them or hates them; there is no in-between. Everyone, however, is in agreement that they serve a worthy purpose. Wearing a name tag alleviates the awkwardness that comes with recognizing the face but not the name. Name tags...

In the portion Terumah, we encounter the first objectification of the spirit: The Sanctuary as it will house what was previously the unencumbered Spirit. God says, build the place out of Me: Make [of] Me a Mikdash/holy place, and I will dwell [Shakhanti/Shekhinah]...