When was the last time you had guests?  It’s been so long since we’ve had anyone over that I can’t even remember. And when someone does come into our house, even for a moment, we all suddenly put on masks: We all cover our faces, our noses, our mouths.  COVID-19 has been crushing not only to...

“The Eternal One said to Abram: Go forth from your native land…to the place that I will show you”. (Genesis 12:1)This Shabbat, we will once again read the well-known Parashat Hashavua of Lech-Lechah, which includes the Divine’s call to our ancestor Abram (later to become known Avraham) to leave...

My own religious experiences and work as a learner-educator, tend to nudge me towards seeing the Holy Blessed One less as a judge or parent and more as the Artful Holy Pedagogue. In that spirit I never cease to be gobsmacked by the radical and profound beauty of the Tower of Bavel story we blessedly...

The natural desire to make meaning of our world caused human beings to develop hundreds of origin stories, each unique to the culture and people who created them.The Babylonian origin story describes a world that emerged out of utter chaos, with the gods turning on one another, battling for supremacy. In...

I was blessed to grow up in an environment that took Jewish tradition seriously. Shabbat and festivals were welcomed with great anticipation and we felt a deep and palpable sense of the rhythms and cycles of living lives that were sanctified and sacred. No Holy-Day was more eagerly awaited than Simchat...

The mood swing from Yom Kippur to Sukkot is among the most dramatic of Jewish transitions. From sobriety to celebration, from awe-struck fear to total joy, from fasting to feasting, we re-engage with the world beyond the walls of synagogue, remembering that in physical pleasure there may also be spiritual...

So you got fat [Deut. 32:15], G*d would have suckled you with honey from a rock and oil from a flinty stone butter of cattle milk or sheep fat of lambs, but you became thick and you kicked. Of course, we will get fat if we eat like that. The honey alone from the rock you might reconsider the oil and...

“Hayom Harat Olam!” “Today is the birthday of the world!” We often hear or say these words during our services on Rosh Hashanah, particularly when we hear the sound of the shofar. “Happy birthday, world,” we say when we try to explain in simple terms one of the oldest themes of our Jewish...

As we find ourselves in the seventh month of the “new normal” of COVID-19 and near the beginning of the New Year 5781, one of the most popular catch phrases has become, “We’re all in this together.” This statement is intended to awaken within each person a sense of personal and communal responsibility...

Devarim - Chapter 26: 1: When you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a heritage, and you possess it and settle in it, 2: You shall take some of every first fruit of the soil, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, put it in a basket, and go to the place...

Sometimes, the only way to remember is to forget. True, most of us worry when we begin to forget things that we once easily remembered. We fear our own loss of cognitive function and that of our loved ones, knowing that the decline of mental acuity and, for many, the onset of memory loss and dementia...

One of our esteemed and notable local rabbis once told a class of beginning adult students that there is no topic that Torah fails to address. Generation by generation, rabbinic minds took an ancient narrative and crafted a never-ending story. We have never been more a part of this story than in this...