June 1, 2021 – Precious Glue
Dear Friends, For over 50 years, Dr. Eugene Borowitz taught rabbinic students how to think. He was intimidating and compassionate, rigorous and a softy, a large presence and a quiet listener. But most of all, Rabbi Borowitz had the uncanny ability to translate the complex thoughts of Judaism’s philosophers and theologians into understandable English. He […]
April 1, 2021 – When the Waterline Runs High
Dear Friends, I don’t really know what happens after I die. With these very words I opened a Yom Kippur sermon some years back. Immediately afterward, a red-in-the-face listener invaded my personal space, his nose coming very close to mine. With a profoundly unpleasant series of staccato jabs to my chest with his forefinger he […]
February 1, 2021
Dear Friends, I’ve never had a good experience nor enjoyed co-teaching a class of young people with a fellow rabbi…until this year. Co-teaching our 10th graders with Rabbi Laurence Malinger has completely changed my view. He is generous of spirit, intensely prepared and has wizard skills relating with 16-year-olds. He is inclusive, broad-minded and has […]
Chanukah and Lemonade
Dear Friends, I’m not a big believer in silver linings. I don’t believe that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. All we really know about what doesn’t kill you is that it doesn’t kill you. And I don’t think that lemonade can always be made from lemons. Sometimes a lousy thing is simply lousy, […]
Candle Rhythms
Dear Friends, Every year my pre-high-holyday anxiety begins when the Torah is turned to the first chapter of Deuteronomy. Moses confesses that he needs help, he pleads with his far senior partner that it’s time to delegate to wise-ones and elders. The job is simply too big and too much. Deuteronomy is the last of […]
The Summer of 2020
Dear Friends, Here’s why you should join the official launch of the New Jersey Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism on Thursday, August 6th at 7:30 pm: https://RAC.org/NJKickoff Like the list of plagues we recite at the Passover Seder, (Blood, Frogs, Lice, Wild Beasts and the rest), the Summer of 2020 reads a little like […]
A Narrow Bridge
By now not only am I a Zoom-Maven, I’m also Zoom-Weary. A recent NY Times article, Why Zoom is Terrible,* likened our new virtual way of being with one another to a blueberry muffin mix “that contains not a single blueberry but artificial flavors, textures and preservatives … eat too many and you’re not going […]