The Hebrew month of Elul begins tomorrow. It’s a month of spiritual reflection and preparation culminating in Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. In honor of Elul I’ll be posting what I’m calling “30 essential questions for life.” Here are
Life Lessons
1. Never miss an opportunity to cuddle with your kids. 2. It’s a joy to be able to give people what they want, especially when they want something good and positive. 3. Forgetting to pick up the dry cleaning is
10 things that happened
1. Finished the On Being podcast interview with Mary Oliver. She pointed out the importance of paying attention and suggested that paying attention was a gateway toward cultivating empathy– attention being necessary but not sufficient. This interview, brought to my attention via
On making lists (my 100th post)
The beauty of making a list is that somehow, inevitably, some of the stuff on the list ends up shedding light on the other stuff and so on, making the entire process strangely (though perhaps only dimly) illuminating. Also, the
10 things that happened
It’s good to make lists. Especially when the elegance of prose (to say nothing of poetry) is elusive. It’s good to sift through a day or some other period of time and see what gets caught in the mesh. 1)
What was prayerful for me today?
In the spirit of continuing to identify what prayer, prayerfulness, and spirituality mean to me, I’m trying to pause and reflect on the question, “What was prayerful for me today?” The only thing that’s tricky doing this in the context
What was prayerful for me today?
1) Our final Jewish music meeting of the year. Working with two remarkably capable and passionate people who have a high level of respect and commitment coupled with a sense of humor and ability to embrace the fact that our
10 Things I saw in Israel that I hope to never forget
1) The sea turtle swimming off the shore of Rosh HaNikra. 2) The man playing violin for our kids in Tzfat. 3) The peacock, plumage on display, at Kibbutz Gonen. 4) The two UN soldiers somberly sipping coffee at Mt.
Things I learned in Arkansas
I just got home from a wonderful weekend serving as an artist and scholar in residence at Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas. Here are some things I learned and/or was reminded about myself, Arkansas, and life in general.
Passover questions 2013
A few years ago my wife and I started a Passover tradition of gathering discussion questions from the folks at the seder we host in our home. Over the course of the seder we pull out some of the questions