Blogs

Judaism is anything but monolithic.  Our text, scripture, is hardly the final word in any conversation.  Rather it serves as a jumping off point.  The text merely gives us an outline and then asks us, the reader, to fill in the details.  This dynamic of reader and text working together to uncover truths is the cornerstone of textual study.

The Torah, Judaism, and the universe are all expansive in nature, not...Read more...

When I was a young boy I would go every Saturday with my parents and siblings to our local synagogue.  My friends and I would attend Junior Congregation while our parents were in the main sanctuary.  We would pile into the small library and sit in our chairs and open the prayer books made especially for us.  Every week the leader would ask us questions about the prayers.  It seemed to my young mind that the questions being...Read more...

During the course of the past year, as in every year, two questions continue to arise that motivate and inform my actions.  The questions come from Hillel’s statement in Pirkei Avot, “Im ein a-ni li, mi li, v’im ani l’atzmai, mah ani - If I am only for myself, who will be for me, and if I am only for others, what am I?” These questions are at the crux of the human conundrum that we all confront. “What do I owe myself?” --...Read more...

Humans like God are story tellers. As Elie Wiesel phrased it, “God created persons because he loves tales.” We as humans take the events of our life and we create multiple narratives – sometimes complementing one another, sometimes conflicting. The story we tell at any one moment shapes who we are as spiritual beings and gives meaning to who we are as a community, or as a people. A story can unite or divide us, depending on how it is...Read more...

The word brave gets bandied about quite a lot.  It is used so often and in so many situations it becomes unclear what truly being brave means or looks like.  This past week I believe we witnessed a true act of bravery in sports as teams across the NBA and MLB chose to forfeit their games and not play.  They did this to bring attention and pressure to the atrociously unjust shooting of a black man in the back...Read more...