Writing plays a major role in how I make sense of the world. Writing allows intuitions to evolve into ideas. It allows the time and space for complicated thoughts and feelings to express themselves in ways that honor their complexity. Writing takes our inner world and makes it available to others. It also allows us to look back on past thoughts, feelings, ideas, and sentiments by preserving them in an accessible format. While much of my writing is personal and therefore not available online or elsewhere, I have maintained several active blogs over the years. You can find those posts here, searchable in a variety of formats. If any of these spark a thought or conversation please drop me a line.
Recent Posts
Life Lessons 5/7/25
Loss is part of life, so too is fear of loss. We are relational beings, the drive to forge connections is among the most powerful of human impulses. It feels good to parent well, even if it isn’t always possible. …
Life Lessons 5/1/25 (Yom Ha’Atzmaut)
Even more than comfort, there’s often tremendous joy and beauty in the familiar. There’s a reason the wheel hasn’t been reinvented. We presume to see others more clearly than they see themselves, when in fact we often see others and…
Life Lessons 4/30/35 (Yom HaZikaron)
Whether we know it or not, we are all actively defining our legacies in each and every moment. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are the direct beneficiaries of someone else’s profound sacrifice. Whether we can see it or…
Life Lessons 4/28/25
There’s an element of existential chutzpah when it comes to making future plans. The right information, presented in the right way, can help mitigate anxiety. Excitement can sometimes register as a lack of respect even when that excitement is actually…
Life Lessons, 4/25/25
Family is complicated. We are learning how to be human. Some wisdom can be imparted from one person to another, some can’t. Anyone who can impart wisdom to another person deserves the honorific: teacher. Intent and intention matter. Once a…
Life Lessons 4/22/25
A past commitment to growth, honored, is now a real and present blessing. Everything needs to be taught, even if it is already known. A room once frigid can quickly become filled with warmth. Children seem to have answers to…
Life Lessons 4/21/25
Alaska is cold in April. Believing otherwise is a perilous endeavor. Operational aspects of any organization are best when they are undetectable by the customer. It’s best to build from the ground up, upon a solid foundation. We’re one choice…
Life Lessons 4/9/25
It’s good to be free. How you define the opposite of “free” tells you a lot about what you mean when you say you’re free. Practice takes practice. Accounting for one’s blessings can be uncomfortable at times. A guitar is…
Life Lessons, 3/19/25
God is the greatest mystery and the simplest thing. Behind all that’s good a spirit of love. To sit in silence is a great skill. There’s elegance in a thoughtful plan well executed. Right now there is someone praying, striving…
Life Lessons 3/6/25
Boredom is an art and highly underrated. Sunshine and fresh air– always welcome, sometimes in short supply. Punctuality is a virtue, albeit not always possible. Just because you know you can doesn’t mean it’s not scary. It’s good to know…
Life Lessons 2/19/25
Love is the most powerful curriculum. Warning, as we likely know, it comes with heartbreak. A day that starts with song is a day that is headed in the right direction. Nothing awakens the teacher within more than a curious…
Life Lessons 1/17/25
Be a blessing. Be a blessing. Be a blessing. Be a blessing. Be a blessing. That is all…
Blessing for the Day
Wake up, awaken live with heart speak wisely open your eyes listen well walk with purpose pay attention be generous be kind accept blessings appreciate the good do something with this life
A Blessing for the Day
May you wake up rested. May your day be filled with meaning. May you do something that brings you joy. May something unexpected and good occur either to you or through you. May you hear music. May you find a…
Life Lessons, December 2024
Everything counts. Ideas are powerful and should be deployed with wisdom. Few worthwhile aims can be achieved through force alone. More often than not, things will manifest in their own time and according to their own schedule. The things we…
A Small Beauty
I took out the trash early in the morning. It was cold and dark. I dragged the bin to the street and put it in its usual spot– right underneath a streetlight. The glow of the streetlight made the thin…
A Blessing Upon a Child’s First Siddur
Many Jewish educational settings have special celebrations during which children receive their first siddur. I wrote this prayer with the intent that it be offered by community rabbis but it could easily be offered by teachers, parents, or anyone…
When We Sing We Pray Twice
Every so often our complicated Middle School academic schedule allows for a moment of Jewish creative inspiration. That was the case recently when we were able to offer a “breakout” Tefilah during our regular Tefilah time. Advertised as a “singing…
The Big Thing
There’s a big thing A thing we can all connect to a thing that’s true and real and beautiful and powerful and enduring of course it’s not a thing, but calling it the big thing is convenient and appealing in…
The Theological Quandry of the Cockroach
I recently found myself in a Tefilah discussion with 1st graders. We were exploring the idea that God created everything. From the smallest grain of sand to the tallest mountain, from the dolphins that swim within site of the shore…
Life Lessons, 11/20/24
Blessings don’t always feel like blessings. But they’re blessings nonetheless. It’s so much more enjoyable to catch someone at their best than at their worst. So much of life is about remembering. We have many teachers and often don’t have…
3 Elegies for Phil Lesh
Elegy for Phil Lesh 10/25/24 Turn your trumpet into a bass guitar And your bass guitar into a UFO And your UFO into Tom Thumb’s Blues And Tom Thumb’s Blues into The Midnight Hour And The Midnight Hour into a…
Concert Notes- Neranenah 7/30/21
Amazing band lineup featuring: Will Robertson- guitar, vocals, songwriting Caroline Goldberg- vocals Melvin Myles- vocals Joe Alterman- piano DJ Burel- drums Robby Handley- bass Julia Filson- fiddle Micah Lapidus- guitar, songwriting Liner notes for songs: Intention– this is a Shabbat…
Judaism 101
A way of life. An ancient wisdom tradition that constantly refreshes. A voice that speaks into the heart of daily living. An invitation to mindfulness. A dance with God. An embrace of the world and creation. A call to ethical…
The Awesome Light
This song is a bit of a paradox. It’s a Nigun with words. The paradox is that Nigun (plural Nigunim) is a style of Jewish music that has no words. So a Nigun with words is a bit of a…
To know the future
The future isn’t ours to know. But one thing is for sure, we’ll never know what the future holds until we know what the present holds. What I mean is this: If we don’t attend to the present moment, we…
Singing
I’m not a great singer. I wish I was. However, there’s a tremendous blessing for me as a musician and songwriter in the fact that I’m not a great singer. The blessing is, at least, twofold. The first blessing of…
Singing With Peter Yarrow
Earlier this week I got to sing with Peter Yarrow. Context: members of the Ebenezer Baptist Church and Temple Choirs were invited to sing with Peter at the opening night of the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival. The song– Blowing in…
Reflections on Jewish Music and the Atlanta Jewish Music Festival
Later this spring I will be a part of the Atlanta Jewish Music Festival’s spring showcase. Specifically, The Well, a musical Shabbat for which I am the primary composer and band leader, will be leading a Shabbat service/ concert at…
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Ti da di da di
It’s 1am. I don’t write much at this hour, at least nowadays. But I got a text message with some upsetting news and can’t fall asleep. The news doesn’t affect me directly, but it upsets me directly, and my mind…
Simple Reminders
Today is a new day. It has never existed before nor will it ever exist again. Each moment is an opportunity to be present physically as well as spiritually. Today will be full of experiences whose meanings will be different…
Inevitability and Possibility
Yesterday I found myself thinking about inevitability and possibility. I found myself thinking about inevitability because of this week’s Torah portion, Vayeshev. Towards the beginning of the portion we read about how Jacob loved Joseph more than his other 11!…
A Prayer for Healing
We need healing. Our world needs healing. I need healing. You probably do as well. To be human is to be broken and whole at the same time. To be human is to know that our bodies are beautifully imperfect…
Life Lessons 11/14/19
Sometimes you have to relearn your own song. The playground matters. Fall is either your favorite or least favorite season. Rarely in between. Cold weather= more pockets! There’s more going on in this moment than can ever be fully appreciated.…
Life Lessons 11/13/19
Sometimes there’s traffic. Sometimes there’s not. Sometimes it’s so easy to find a parking spot that you forget to appreciate how easy it was. While an affront to the drinker, it’s quite understandable to give the Diet Coke to the…
We are neighbors
Last night our HOA hosted the annual Halloween party for our neighborhood. 40-50 of us gathered in our clubhouse for a pizza dinner before heading out to trick-or-treat. I don’t know what came over me, but I suddenly felt an…
A Poem a Day
I just read a poem or two. It’s a rainy day and it seemed like a good thing to do. It reminded me that poets exist. Many more than we will ever know. It reminded me that we might be…
Beginner’s Mind Torah
Yesterday I had to transfer a Torah scroll from The Davis Academy Lower School campus to The Davis Academy Middle School campus. The scroll was being stored in an Ark that resides in a room adjacent to our Lower School…
3 Jewish Prayers Every Person Should Recite
This morning I found myself discussing the meaning of some of the daily prayers that Jews recite each morning. It reminded me of the relevance and maybe even the necessity of finding words like these to remind and guide us…
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Jewish Body, Jewish Soul
Jewish tradition honors both the body and the soul. The ancient rabbis understood that, as human beings, we experience the world through the body. Our senses, our physicality, our material self. They taught us to treat the body with respect,…
Final Delivery
I just observed a tender, inspiring, and profoundly human interaction. John, the UPS employee who delivers packages to The Davis Academy a few times a week, was asking for our receptionist Ms. Janice. As it turns out, he wanted to…
A Passion to Serve
Today I had the pleasure of hearing Sherry Frank speak about her life story as it is represented in her remarkable book entitled, A Passion to Serve: Memoirs of a Jewish Activist. As Sherry spoke, I found my heart opening…
In Memory of Robert Hunter
Laying in his bed and dying, his momma called him home. Did he see the dark star crash? If you look out of any window, you might see the dark star crash. Like a whiskey drunk china cat, with no…
A great definition of art
In episode #341 of the EntreLeadership Podcast, Seth Godin says the following about what it means to be an artist. He says that an act of artistry involves, “Doing something that’s not in the manual, something human, something generous, something…
Spiritual Reflections on Billy Strings @ Terminal West, ATL 9/6/19
A longtime and beloved friend and I went to the opening night of Billy Strings’ two night run at Terminal West in Atlanta. A quartet of super bluegrass and acoustic musicians, Billy Strings is on the rise and developing a…
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We are blessed to know
We are blessed to know people. People like Davona. People who bring light and joy and sweetness into our lives. People who make our lives better. Simply by virtue of our bumping into them in the hallway. In the cafeteria.…
A Blessing for the Night Before School Starts
This blessing can be read the night before the first day of school, or the morning of… A Back to School Blessing for 2019-2020 Tomorrow our family goes back to school. While we are sad that summer break is coming…
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This Darkness Has to Give: 2019 GD Meetup Review
This year’s Grateful Dead Meetup at the Movies was my 3rd foray into the world of movie theater Grateful Dead weirdness. When I saw that the footage was a show from Giants Stadium 1991 I wasn’t sure what to expect.…
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The Music Plays the Band- Dead and Company, Atlanta, GA 6/29/19
The date was on my calendar for months. In some ways, the anticipation of a Saturday afternoon of Dead and Company is its own reward. Andy and I rolled down to the show with plenty of time to navigate the…
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Rocketman
I recently saw Rocketman, the Elton John biopic. I’m writing this short reflection as someone who is admittedly, not an Elton John fan. It’s not that I don’t like some of his songs or appreciate his musicality, it’s just that…