Search

 As we begin the year 5777, let us commit to putting greater inclusion, equality, and acceptance of all God’s children front and center.

I have a hard time believing that, however good the intentions may be, typing "Please forgive me if I hurt you" into our browsers can create change.

If posting an apology online serves as a starting point for follow-up conversations, I say go for it. How could that ever be a bad thing?

I vowed that if Israel survived, I would never again abandon my people, never again be indifferent to Israel’s fate.

Each year on Yom Kippur, I join my congregation is reciting the Ashamnu, an alphabetic acrostic of sins for which we repent. And each year, it occurs to me that most of the sins named in the Ashamnu don’t hit me in the heart I’m beating – and so, I wrote my own version of the prayer.

Whether you prefer the 1843 book or any of the many movie versions made since, there is no question that Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a classic.

Now, despite the season for which Dickens wrote it, A Christmas Carol is a Yom Kippur story if there ever was one.

As the summer passes its midway point, rabbis begin to think seriously about the coming Days of Awe.

When people ask me what prompted me to become a rabbi, I often tell them about my love of Jewish learning, or Israel, or a desire to help, or some such noble pursuit. The truth is, what really prompted me to become a rabbi was Chuck Taylor sneakers.

Every year for 30 years, I’ve sat in a temple sanctuary on the High Holidays and watched a movie. It’s a movie only I can see – flashbacks of all the times I recall over the past 52 weeks when I didn’t measure up to the standards of my head, heart, and soul.