The following is an excerpt from a sermon that I delivered on March 22nd at the Pelham Jewish Center: The experience that brought me back to Judaism was this: Freshman year of college, sitting with my friend Clint late at night in our quad as the yellow-orange lights glowed above our heads. He had just … More »
One of my classmates at JTS says that you can divide up most of the JTS student body (and most groups in general) into two categories: “deep breathers” and “eye rollers.” The deep breathers are those meditative types, the ones who meet a new situation with a huge inhale and a contented smile. They’re the … More »
The Zen Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh tells this story in his book, The Sun My Heart: Today three children, two girls and a little boy, came from the village to play with Thanh Thuy (pronounced ‘Tahn Tui’). The four of them ran off to play on the hillside behind our house and were gone … More »
In late October, a news segment aired about a Chinese family who has been holding onto 2,000 books for the past 70 years that belonged to a Jewish family who fled to Shanghai during the Shoah.* Even though the district decided that it was time to renovate the neighborhood where the books were stored, the … More »
Last year in Israel, I was part of the Encounter Leadership Seminar, where we as future Jewish leaders worked on becoming productive agents of change around the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I spent time in the West Bank, including Hebron, Ramallah, and Bethlehem, and also in East Jerusalem, and I listened to stories. I heard Palestinian narratives … More »
Is there a value to women-only space? Should a person who identifies as a feminist support women-only communities or endeavors? Who are our primary allies – women alone, or people of all genders who support fairness and equality? I don’t know if I can provide definitive answers to any of those questions, but I’ll try … More »
I often think about Yom Kippur as a solo experience. Even though I spend all of Yom Kippur surrounded by hundreds of other Jews praying, it’s really about me and God in dialogue, as if it were only the two of us in the room. So it’s a bit strange that the only piece of … More »