Beyond measure, I am blessed. In ways disguised and manifest. In ways I can appreciate and ways I cannot. In ways deserved but in more ways graced. In ways that touch my daily existence and ways that don’t. Beyond measure, I am blessed. In ways that delight and ways that overwhelm. — Among these […]
Daily Life
Be a Blessing
“Be a blessing.” That’s God’s instruction to Abram in Genesis 12. Whenever I read these words or think of this teaching, I think of Rabbi Alvin Sugarman. Many years ago he and I were part of a rabbinic panel at The Temple. Rabbi David Baylinson joined us as well. Each of us was asked to […]
Holiday-Free Judaism
For the next month and change there won’t be any major Jewish holidays. That leaves some Jews wondering how to engage “Jewishly” since the holidays provide both an occasion and a script for Jewish experiences. The truth is actually quite simple: Judaism without holidays is, in many ways, much more engaging and fulfilling than Judaism […]
What’s it like to be a rabbi?
I have a cherished colleague. Her name is Dr. M. Cathy Harmon-Christian. She teaches in the theology department at Marist. Among other things, she and I have a chavruta, a study-based friendship. It’s a lot of fun. An offshoot of that chavruta is that every so often she’ll send along a question asked by her students. “What’s […]
Predictions for 5778
Here are some predictions for 5778. I’m pretty confident they’ll come to pass. 5778 will be a year of… radical love and radical hatred profound peace and profound violence deep connection and deep alienation wisdom and folly clarity and ambiguity health and sickness laughter and tears life and death progress and decline momentum and […]
Knowing and Unknowing
So this is an actual conversation that took place with a bunch of 5th graders this week in the context of a class I teach called Menschology… What if each of us actually knew a lot more about a lot of really important things than we actually give ourselves credit for. What if each of […]