Some Reflections on Loss and Renewal
The night of my brother's funeral, the moon was full - enormous and hanging low in the sky.
An Omer Meditation
Galilee Diary: The Melody of the Heart
Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart.
-Deuteronomy 6:4-6
Galilee Diary: Redemption and Independence
Blessed are You O Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who differentiates between light and darkness, between Israel and the nations, between sadness and joy, between war and peace, between Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzmaut; blessed are You O Lord, who differentiates between the holy an
Galilee Diary: Non-collective memory
In recent decades, trips to Poland for 11th graders have become de rigueur in high schools in middle class communities.
Galilee Diary: Old Time Religion
Rabbi Shimon fled to the cave to escape a death sentence for publicly criticizing Roman culture. According to folk tradition, during his twelve years of isolation, he engaged in mystical meditation and wrote the Zohar, the central work of Kabbalah.
Book Discussion: Day After Night
The English essayist and poet Alexander Pope wrote, "Hope springs eternal in the human breast..." That adage is challenged by the four protagonists in Anita Diamant's book, Day After Night.
Book Discussion: America's Prophet
In his previous books Walking the Bible and Where God was Born Bruce Feiler took the reader on journeys primarily through the ancient Middle East. America's Prophet, his most current book, leaps ahead several thousand years and thousands of miles.
"The Rabbi and the Rosary": on Parshat Vayetzeh (Genesis 28:10-32:3)
All stories that teach a lesson are "true,"but some are also factual.This story is true and factual...Based on an event that occurred in 1999
Although my role as Program Chair of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC) placed several resp
Hamantaschen Test Kitchen: Gluten-Free
My family is not gluten-free. But we have several close friends who are. So when I posted earlier this month that I'd be starting my hamantaschen baking, one of those friends asked if I'd be making any gluten-free delicacies. Um, no.