Search

Question: On Sukkot, we remember our ancestors' struggles to balance their lives with the surrounding environment in order to produce a bountiful harvest each year. But most of us no longer grow our own food or live at the mercy of natural phenomena in the same ways.

Yom Kippur, 1965, I was a Navy medical officer stationed aboard a destroyer off the coast of Vietnam. 

At the conclusion of Yom Kippur years ago, I attended a break-the-fast at the home of old friends. I loaded my plate with a bagel, lox, and vegetables and ambled over to a conversational group, where I stood munching and listening.

When I think of the word “hope,” one sentence comes to mind: Hope is a dangerous thing.

I don't remember where or when I first heard the statement, and I'm fairly sure it was intended as a warning, but the idea has stuck with me.

Hope is a dangerous thing.

We encouraged our daughter, Sydney Plovsky, who is a sophomore at Elon University, to read Torah during the High Holidays at her school; growing up, she had been a frequent Torah reader at Temple Emanu

A Major League Baseball committee proposed new rules last month for using instant replay to correct the mistakes of umpires – and I’ve been thinking about how much easier things would be if we could just apply those rules to everyday life.