Have You Only But One Blessing?!: Stealing Birthrights and Giving Voice to the Voiceless

The characters in the Bible are far from perfect. Yet this makes sense, as we too are just as far from perfect. What occurs in this week’s parasha is simply wrong. While it might be applauded as heroic in the tradition, if what happened in the Bible happened in your family, I imagine you would be disturbed.

November 20, 2022November 21, 2022

Falling Head Over Heels in Love: How to Find First Love and Genuine Intimacy

Do you remember your first love? Your first kiss? Your first embrace? How you and they met? What they wore that first day? What they were like? How you felt meeting them? Or perhaps your first love is your current love? The Hebrew Bible tells us such a story…

November 9, 2022November 20, 2022

The Sacrifice of Isaac: Beyond Obedience… is Love!

The binding and sacrifice of Isaac is one of the most disturbing, gruesome, and hellish koan in all the Bible. How can God ask Abraham to raise his beloved son Isaac as a sacrifice? It is astounding! Yet, if we penetrate this koan fully, we are invited to raise our most compassionate heart-mind and not only save Isaac’s life, but Abraham’s and God’s lives too! And perhaps even our own!

November 2, 2022November 8, 2022

Leaving Home: A Lifelong Koan

What do the heavy metal band Guns N’ Roses, the Hebrew Bible, and the Chasidic masters Rebbe Nachman and Simcha Bunam all have in common? They each beg us to ask and answer the question, “Where do we go now?” As we shall see, this question is as old as God and man.

October 11, 2022October 11, 2022

Outfoxing God: The Tail End of Amends and a Warm Welcome to the Human Race

Outfoxing God - The Tail of Amends and a Warm Welcome to the Human Race

There is no way around it. No one can outfox God. No matter how smart we think we are or how hard we try, there is no outsmarting the Divine. Yet… we try! And try we do! Perhaps even must?!

May 16, 2021May 16, 2021

Dear God: Love Letters from / to the Divine

Dear God - Love Letters From and To the Divine

Have you ever written a letter to God? Wished that you could simply speak your Truth to the Divine and hear back? We all need that! And so does the Divine! This is what Shavuot is all about!

In one of my Rabbinical School classes on Pastoral Care and Chaplaincy, my chevruta (study partner) and I offered parallel interpretive translations of Psalm 42 written as letters from and to God.

With the permission of my chevruta, Cantor Russell G. Jayne, MSM, PharmD, I would like to offer our correspondence with the Divine to you in honor of the Shavuot holiday tonight and tomorrow. Chag Shavuot sameach! Have a wonderful Shavuot holiday!

May 14, 2021October 11, 2022

I Will Follow “You”: The True Gift of Shavuot

In just a few days, we celebrate receiving the Torah on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. It may not always feel like we receive the gifts that we want and “deserve” or even have what to offer others or ourselves. Then, what did we receive that fateful day over 3,000 years ago? What are the gifts you celebrate this Shavuot?

May 2, 2021May 3, 2021

“How Much Longer”?: Taking Sabbatical in the Fields of Our Heart

Have you ever wanted something so bad that it hurt your heart? Seen something so horrific that it just bled your heart dry? Just want to go home, lie in bed or even a corner somewhere, and long to feel safe for even just the one, single night?

November 3, 2020May 2, 2021

Neither Blue nor Red: Can You Hear It?

Neither Blue Nor Red: Can Your Hear "It"?

I am writing tonight on election night, November 3, 2020. The results are slowly coming in, yet I instead want to write to you.

I was recently invited to share my opinion as a Jewish rabbinical student about the 2020 presidential election. At first, I wanted to decline this request, yet I now elect to speak my voice. What I have to say might perhaps be unusual to some or many, yet I offer my words with an open mind and grateful heart.

September 4, 2020May 14, 2021

Betzelem Ish v’Isha: Are We Created in God’s Image? Or Is God Created in Ours?

In this week’s parashah, God tells us that life and death, blessing and cursing, are placed before us, and that we should choose life so that we and all of our children and our children’s children shall truly live (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Living and Dying

God places blessing and cursing right in our face and the power to give and take life with just who and how we are, the look in our eyes and our facial expression or smile, and through how we see ourselves and one another.

God places before us life and death and asks us to choose. God places before me and before each individual person living and dying and begs me, you, and us to choose living. When we choose life, we choose to live and to enliven our life and those of others. Only then do we—only then can we—truly become alive.