For Yom Kippur, I explore what it is in our American Jewish soul – the longing, the fear, and the insecurity – that keeps us silent when Israel (and Palestine) are under discussion. Now is the time to find our voice.
Read moreJerusalem Day
Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Day – celebrates the reunification of the City. But it feels anything but unified. It can only be honored as a vision, but a vision in need of revision.
Read moreWhen the Earth Trembles
Just as the memory of earthquakes is wired into our bodies, so the memory of earthquakes is wired into our mythologies. Our ancestors understood earthquakes to be the very Earth trembling in God’s presence, as we ourselves certainly would. God is the physics of the earthquake and more than the physics. God is also in our pained experience of the catastrophe.
Read moreChayei Sarah: Putting it to Rest
There is a moment
in this week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, that always catches me. A moment that always strikes me in the simplicity of what it says and in the vastness of what it doesn’t say.
This week we see Isaac and Ishmael, shoulder to shoulder, burying their father. How is it possible to resist the expectation to be enemies and let go of the past's hold on us?
Read moreBlessings During a Surge of Violence
B’rukhah haTikvah
Blessed be my hope, which continues to live. May it be not fantasy but demand. A demand upon heaven and a demand upon earth. May hope be rewarded, speedily, in our time. Rewarded with peace. Rewarded with breath. Rewarded with ordinary, unremarkable coexistence. Rewarded with yet more hope.
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