Ki Teitzei means when you leave. When we leave our expectations over the messes great and little, some we have made, some made for us. When we cease to compare the what-it-is to the what-we-wanted or the-way-it-was-supposed-to-be. When we leave behind...

It was Shabbat Naso, the longest parashah in the Torah, read in proximity to Shavuot, the great wedding celebrating the enduring wisdom given to us on a mountain top. We had prepared. Was it a complete gift, this wisdom, or did we turn ourselves...

In our book this week, father Jacob thought he was going to settle down, so he sent me after my brothers.I couldn’t find them but I go when called. I wouldn’t make so much of that I don’t have the energy to be anywhere else. My present is demanding...

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...

Matot is the word for tribes in the opening verse. We have another word for tribe: shevet. Matei (singular) and shevet both signify a branch, a staff, part of a tree, how a branch becomes a tribe. I am thinking about this as I stoop to kiss the ground...

I hear Leviticus speaking. Leviticus and Dante got together in the form of a virus, a nonlocal reminder in the language of Leviticus – purity and impurity — that all of us are in this together. I hear Deuteronomy speaking. We will be judged by the...

In the groups that I lead for Shalvah on Addiction and No Shande on mental health and mental illness, we are familiar with the subject of suicide. Whenever it comes up it tends to take over the meeting. The meeting is basically a teaching and a sharing,...

Jacob left from Be’er Sheva, went toward Haran, Genesis 28:10.You’re leaving the seventh well, bye bye Be’er Sheva, going toward or in the direction of — you don’t know where you are going, you know only that you must go. Go toward.You have...

D’var Torah — CHAYEI SARAHThe name of the portion is Chayei Sarah, the life of Sarah. Abraham comes to bury Sarah and to cry for her (Genesis 23:2). Something has separated them, Abraham comes to bury her and ends up paying everything. It seems as...

Beginning with the month of Elul, we are into the Days of Awe ascent. In the synagogue we read the messages of consolation from the prophet Isaiah, leaving the descent of the three weeks of sadness drawn now towards the heights of awe. Where we have...

We practice mental health in a specific way on the first Sunday of every month at Central Reform Congregation, with my wife, Rabbi Susan Talve, and myself presiding. We practice mental health this way for a variety of good reasons:As a response to a felt...