We have more stimuli than ever. According to the Wall Street Journal, Americans between the ages of 18-24 check their smart phones 53 times a day. How can we pause to think and reflect when there is an incessant flood of emails, text messages, and non-stop social media? Scientists have proposed a name for one … More »
I wasn’t prepared. After enjoying the benefits of childhood, (being served prepared meals, having my material needs provided for, and being nurtured, etc.) how was I supposed to go and start looking for work? However, after realizing that I needed to fill open time in my schedule and that I needed to have my own … More »
Consider how Thomas Jefferson viewed our modern era, guided by self-government and privileged with scientific progress. Jefferson believed that periodic revolutions were necessary so as to restore freedom and independent thinking, shake power structures, and relive the struggle for self-rule so as to be a part of the community and state: May it be to … More »
Judaism reminds us that we must take responsibility and use our power for justice. In a radical rabbinic source (Midrash Rabbah, Vayikra 32:8), the rabbis declare that the Great Sanhedrin itself was an oppressor in how it treated the suffering of the mamzerim: “I further observed all the oppression that goes on under the sun: … More »
Ever felt too busy to breathe? I can recall a time when I was working on three different graduate degrees at once while building the early stages of an emerging non-profit, and working various jobs amidst other passions and duties. Sleep rarely made the agenda. An important case has been made against perpetually “being busy:” … More »
“Globalization divides as much as it unites…What appears as globalization for some means localization for others; signaling a new freedom for some, upon many others it descends as an uninvited and cruel fate.” -Zygmunt Bauman (Globalization: The Human Consequences, p. 2, 1998) There was a time when Jews, locked in ghettoes, were forced to only … More »
It was once believed that our core obligations in life are to G-d, our family, and our local community. All of those are, of course, still true, but as global citizens our responsibilities have expanded as our consciousness has. We no longer can live in isolation. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, the great 19th century German … More »
I have always felt something exceptional at the Kotel (western wall), but I have generally had to work to achieve that feeling and it remains unpredictable. There is something holy that I cannot yet fully grasp about that place in the heart of Jerusalem. It may seem counterintuitive to think that our religion (consumed with … More »
The “Avodah” service is a highlight in the Yom Kippur mussaf service. This unique recitation is a reenactment of the moment when the High Priest begged G-d in the centralized Jerusalem Temple for the atonement of the entire Jewish people. The narration of the service is already found in various forms during the Talmudic times … More »