Understanding the Significance of the Akeidah for Modern Jewish Thought
The New Year is a Chance to Realign Our Actions with Our Values
How can we hold ourselves accountable for our actions? How can we follow through with changing our own lives?
This Temple's Award-Winning LGBTQ+ "Uninitiative" Exemplifies the Ongoing Work of Audacious Hospitality
Temple Emanuel of the Merrimack Valley in Lowell, MA, won a 2019 URJ Belin Award for its LGBTQ+ “Uninitiative,” a series of audaciously hospitable actions to welcome and support the congregation’s LGBTQ+ community.
Facing Mortality and Choosing Life
You stand this day, all of you, before the Eternal your God – you tribal heads, you elders, and you officials, all the men of Israel, you children, you women, even the stranger within your camp, from wood chopper to water drawer – to enter into the cov
It Shouldn’t Take a Pandemic to Return Us to Ourselves
A Suburban Problem With a Summer Camp Solution
My wife Robin and I have a suburban problem. We recently bought our first house, and it features both a formal living room, which I call the living room, and a “family room,” which I also keep referring to as the living room. It gets confusing.
Seeing Through the Darkness: Inside Charlottesville’s Synagogue One Week Later
May we continue to be inspired by Congregation Beth Israel to turn darkness into light, to turn fear into resolve, to turn xenophobia into acceptance, and to turn hatred into hope.
Meditations on the Poetry of Un’taneh Tokef
Descriptions of God are speculation, imagination, projection, fantasy, philosophical proposition or pure poetry. Some are banal. Some are hate-filled. Some are so sublime they move us to tears. Some lead us to insights about ourselves. Some transport us beyond our parochial perceptions to act on behalf of others. Notions of God represent our greatest hopes or fears about the power that lies far beyond us or both beyond and within us
4 Jewish Ways to Take Part in #GivingTuesday
This #GivingTuesday, give back in one or more ways that are meaningful to you.
In Charlottesville, the Local Jewish Community Presses On
After the nation moves on, we will be left to pick up the pieces. Fortunately, this is a very strong and capable Jewish community, blessed to be led by incredible rabbis.