Bumping into God

March 16, 2019 Irwin Keller

Or maybe you climb a mountain and spend 40 days and nights sitting in anticipation, maybe meditating, maybe praying. Until the hand of God appears, scribbling madly on stone.

Or maybe you follow a baby goat until you notice a burning bush. Or you chase a stray calf right into a cave filled with the light of Eden.

Or maybe you do nothing at all.

Torah The Musical – And Other Lessons from the Broadway Stage

January 18, 2019 Irwin Keller

After much thought, I decided Torah, as a musical, is maybe most like "Into the Woods." Here's why.

Joseph the Matriarch

December 5, 2018 Irwin Keller

We are now in the annual 4-week saga of Joseph, and I find myself eyeing him across the ages. I see him young, middle aged and, at long last, at the end of his life, settling in to be a grandmother, the matriarch of his line.

Pep Talk: Do Not Be Afraid

October 19, 2018 Irwin Keller

They say that in a moment of great unsettling, the Holy One issues forth two angels – one on the right and one on the left, to hold the disconcerted person by the elbows and keep them from falling. In other words, the al tirá is not an instruction but a conjuring of Divine support. The moment of al tirá

On Crossing Great Waters

April 7, 2018 Irwin Keller

Maybe I come from a long line of non-swimming, land-locked Keller men, flagrantly violating this rabbinic injunction, generation after generation, or generation before generation, all the way back to the Exodus from Egypt, where some proto-Keller would have stood gaping at the Sea in abject terror.