I sat in the resonating chamber of the Great Synagogue, just as I had stood at the Temple of Poseidon, and wondered about this human impulse to build a house for the gods. Why? We could go outside and worship on a mountain, or before an altar of ocean, or in the Italian countryside among colonnades of umbrella pines. But no, instead we build structures of great weight, at great expense, even though their bulging doric columns are designed to call to mind the trees just outside the door.
Read moreOrdination and Lamentation
After years, months, weeks, days of anticipation, I was ordained as a rabbi last Sunday, wearing a tallit that had belonged to my beloved lifelong rabbi, Mark S. Shapiro. The next day, the world lost Steve Shapiro – his son and my friend.
Read moreLate Season
And there it was. My unspoken conviction that all fruition must come before age 60, while I'm still young in my own estimation. That if I didn't achieve whatever on some timeline, then I'd failed, and I might as well give it up. I sat there and laughed at myself, willing to deny my future self all sorts of fulfillment and joy, just because I thought 60 was too old.
Read moreIsolation, AIDS Flashbacks, & Divine Embrace
There are pieces of this isolation I want to remember and bring with me when we are finally able to move freely about the cabin. But I also know that this isolation, no matter how pleasant parts of it may be, is something we will all need to reckon with over time. Because there is injury in going so long not touching and not being touched! Noticing and having to ignore the skin’s desire to feel skin, our bones’ desire to be pressed in an embrace.
Read moreIrwin, My Tocayo
I was still in the batter's box when Ancestry tossed me a reference to that Isaak Keller, clearly him, with the right birthdate and the right parents. The document Ancestry had found was a death record. 1942. Dachau.
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