Galilee Diary: Fade to Black
The Lord, the Lord is gracious and compassionate, patient, and abounding in kindness and faithfulness, assuring love for a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, and granting pardon. -Exodus 34:6-7
Not the Usual Barnes and Noble Minhag
Like so many of the things we've done in the last few months, the annual Yom Kippur afternoon jaunt of my father and me to Barnes and Noble following the morning service at temple was
Summer is Coming: A Look at Shabbat at Camp vs. Home
Summer is coming soon, and it’s all I can think about this Shabbat, when I am at home in D.C., dreaming of Massachusetts. Because out of all of the things I love about camp, it’s possible I love Shabbat the most. And as my countdown ticks down, my excitement riles up.
10 Steps to Leading Your Own Shabbat Hike
Leading your own synagogue Shabbat hike is incredibly easy. In just 10 steps – simple but effective – you can embark on a moving spiritual experience. And, as we discovered on Congregation Or Ami’s own Shabbat hikes, the journey is inspiring and refreshing.
How to Restore a Torah to Holiness
Recently in my congregation, while holding fast to the Torah, we didn’t hold fast enough – literally – and it accidently fell to the floor during a Shabbat service.
How to Give Your Services Fresh Air and Sunshine This Summer
Outdoor services offering kid-friendly, informal or abbreviated worship, and camp-style music are popular during the summer. Here’s a sampling of good ol’ summertime Shabbat celebrations in some Reform congregations across North America.
Cold: Prayer for a Chilly Shabbat
Snow days can be fun; not so this kind of cold. It was colder in Chicago this week than it was in the North Pole.
What Happens When We Just See What We Want to See?
On July 2, 2014, the prestigious science journal Nature retracted two heralded papers in the field of stem cell research, papers it had published only a few months earlier. The articles described a revolutionary process called STAP, where biologists subjected mature adult cells to physical stresses and transformed them into stem cells. Yet, in the editorial announcing the papers' retraction, Nature's editors reported that the "data that were an essential part of the authors' claims had been misrepresented" and that the authors' work was marred by "sloppiness" and "selection bias" ("Editorial: STAP retracted," Nature, vol. 511, no. 7507, July 2, 2014). All told, as the journalist Dana Goodyear has written, "a far-reaching and sensational conjecture" was "defeated by flaws that were at best irreparable and at worst unconscionable" ("The Stress Test," The New Yorker, February 29, 2016, pp. 46-57).
A Jewish Response to Political Scandal
As we witness public figures dismantled by the revelation of ugly episodes from their pasts, we parents must distill these events and their aftermath for our children.