There is a poem by Yehudah Amichai called “The Diameter of the Bomb” that talks about the circles of impact of a single explosion. 

He wrote—

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a...Read more...

I had a friend in high school who claimed that absolutely anything could be compared to an orange. 

A book is like an orange because… it is has a covering that doesn’t reveal everything that is inside.  You have to open it up to get the goods.

Math class is like an orange because… oranges can...Read more...

In my house these last six months—alongside social isolation, concerns about family, running out of our favorite salsa, and managing full-time professional responsibilities while also parenting—the major themes of the pandemic have been Legos, monsters, and fantasy books. 

My children have spent much of this pandemic time building...Read more...

When I was nine years old, I began walking to school on my own.  I would walk down the street and sing songs that I made up myself.  That year, during the same six-month period, I also wrote a play that my friends and I immediately started rehearsing.  I briefly played field hockey, which I am sure I was terrible at, but that didn’t matter.  Also, I figured out how to use the program...Read more...

Last fall, I heard a 2017 interview with the author and journalist Ta-Nahisi Coates on the radio show On Being.  Coates, who is Black, was chafing that he was being asked to give hope to his audience in the face of racial injustice against Black Americans. 

“I was trained as a journalist,” he said. “Journalists...Read more...

A tale was told by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the ancient book of Midrash Vayikra Rabbah, about a group of people who were together on a ship.  It was a beautiful day, but as the afternoon wore on, each longed for home and each retreated to his or her own spot to wait out the time.  Gradually, a number of passengers became aware of a grinding, scraping sound coming from near the center of the boat. ...Read more...

Well, here we are. 

Or, rather:  here we are in this sanctuary, and there you are at home are where you are.  We are together but not together.  A community scattered, but joined in this video stream.  It’s like how we say that all of us were together at Sinai, when we heard the 10 Commandments, even though, physically, we...Read more...

The Thursday before Rosh Hashanah, I reminded our five year old that he would be going on a trip the next morning.  I said, “Remember?  You and Daddy and Gersh are flying down to Florida for cousin Nell’s wedding, and you’ll come back Sunday in time for Rosh Hashanah dinner.”

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There is a lot of debate among rabbis, and within congregations, about how much political speak is okay to have from the bimah: There are some who come to Temple precisely because they want to make meaning of the day’s news or to be galvanized toward something of bigger political purpose than themselves.  There are others who come for a respite, as the one place where they can leave politics behind.   
Judaism is not...Read more...

נִשְׁמַת כָּל חַי תְּבָרֵךְ אֶת שִׁמְךָ ה' אֱלהֵינוּ

Nishmat kol chai  t’varech et shimcha, Adonai Eloheinu

Let the soul of every living thing bless your name, Adonai our God….

כָּאָמוּר, לְדָוִד,...Read more...

I am in a generation that was taught so much about
anti-Semitism and Holocaust,
and pogroms and the Inquisition, and the Crusades.

Always with the message:  Never Forget. 
And always with the message:  Never Again.

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I have a big question that has been looming over me leading up to the High Holy Days this year. It is something I have been thinking about a lot, and it feels really timely right now. It is: Why am I so tired? A peshat, straightforward, simple answer you might give me is: “Um… my friend and rabbi? You are a parent of two very active, four- and six-year-old boys; you are working full time, as is your spouse, you are a rabbi on Yom...Read more...

I’m a rabbi, so it’s probably no surprise when I say that I love Torah. I love the stories and the people and the conundrums, and love that Torah is the shared vocabulary that we play with as a Jewish people. I love how we debate it and create new stories and midrashim to explain things in it. I sometimes even love it when it Torah makes me uncomfortable, because I know that it can inspire good opportunities for reflection and...Read more...