June 19, 2019
Food, Faith, and Freedom
Shalom Chaverim, This week’s Torah portion, Beha’alotecha (Numbers 8:1 - 12:16) includes a painfully accurate observation on human nature: The riffraff amongst them were beset with a craving, and the Israelites joined them weeping, and said, “Who will...
June 11, 2019
Be A Blessing And Be Blessed
Shalom Chaverim, This week’s parasha, Naso (Numbers 4:21-7:89), contains the Priestly Blessing, one of the most familiar and beloved pieces of our liturgy. In traditional settings, the service leader chants the blessing during the repetition...
June 05, 2019
We’re gonna tell it again…
Shalom Chaverim— A few weeks ago Julie and I were blessed to be celebrating our daughter’s graduation from college. It was the first time in a few years that we were able to be together...
May 29, 2019
Spiritual and Religious?
Shalom Chaverim— This week’s Torah portion, Bechokotai (Leviticus 26:3-27:34) closes the book of Leviticus, thus ending the long stretch of instructions to and about indigenous Judaism’s most elite class, the kohanim or priests. The priesthood...
May 14, 2019
The Kids Are Alright
Parshat Emor (Leviticus 21:1 - 24:23) Shalom Chaverim— About a decade ago I was coaching kids in the Coastside Jewish Community’s b’mitzvah program on drash writing. To be perfectly honest, I’m a terrible coach. I...
May 07, 2019
Love Yourself, Love Your Neighbor
Shalom Chaverim— Earlier today I was lying on my massage therapist’s table, involuntarily yelping as my ligament, tendons, and muscles were being pulled, stretched, and torqued by expert hands and feet. At each discovery of...
May 01, 2019
Life After Death
Shalom Chaverim, This week’s parasha, Acharei Mot (Leviticus 16:1 - 18:30), begins with the following crushing and enigmatic words: “And The Mysterious One spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron,...
April 24, 2019
Are You What You Eat?
Shalom Chaverim - Passover is upon us, with all of its gustatory restrictions, creativity, and nostalgia. I wrote my Master’s thesis in Jewish Studies on the particular power found in the unlikely tasting profile of...
April 16, 2019
The Undeniable Impermanence
Shalom Chaverim, As I began to write this musing, the spire of Notre Dame had just fallen in a flamboyant descent, the familiar landmark transforming before my eyes. Moments later, I discovered that the Al...
April 10, 2019
A Metaphor for the Human Condition
Shalom Chaverim— I just returned from leading the JCCSF annual Staff Israel Seminar. This year was a two-week marathon—each day we covered a whiplash-inducing spectrum of ideas and ideologies, people and places, beliefs, and visions....
March 19, 2019
An Elevated and Intimate Space
Shalom Chaverim— The work of redemption is hard, relentless, time-consuming, and costly. Whether we are talking about mistakes or accidents, intentional behavior or inadvertent acts—when we have caused disruption in our community, it requires tikkun, a...
March 06, 2019
Biblical Blueprint for Holy Community
Shalom Chaverim— This week’s parasha, Pekudei (Exodus 38:21-40:38), closes the long stretch of Biblical blueprints and plans for the Mishkhan, which can be understood as God’s dwelling on earth and/or our place to form holy...
February 27, 2019
Everyone Whose Heart Was Stirred
Shalom, Chaverim— Fair warning: Once again, this week’s musing is a biblically inspired pitch, not entirely unlike like last week’s teaching which, due to technical difficulties, wasn’t widely read. That said, I could have written...
February 19, 2019
Creating a Spectacular Mishkan
Shabbat Shalom, Chaverim— Fair warning: this is going to be a Biblically-inspired pitch! Following another long description of what will be needed to create a spectacular mishkan, or community ritual space, this week’s Torah portion,...
February 06, 2019
Make for Me a Sacred Place
Terumah 2019 I dedicate this Musing to the memory of our friend, teacher, and Chochmat HaLev member, Shaykh Dr. Ibrahim Baba Farajeje Shalom Chaverim— Julie and I just are back from a whirlwind trip to...
January 16, 2019
Where is our strength hiding?
Shalom Chaverim— This week’s Torah portion, Beshallach (Exodus 13:17-17:16) includes perhaps the most well known and dramatic moments of all biblical narratives—the parting of the Sea of Reeds. The moment is supremely anxious: the fleeing...
January 09, 2019
Delicious and devastating life on Earth
Shalom Chaverim— This week’s parasha, Bo (Exodus 10:10-13:16), closes out the famous Ten Plagues episode, which leads us to the liberation of the Israelites from slavery. The final plague, “Death of the Egyptians’ Firstborn,” saturates...
January 02, 2019
Lost from our own hearts
Shalom, Chaverim— We are in plague-land, my friends. Parashat Va’eira (Exodus 6:2-9:35) focuses almost exclusively on the first seven of the ten plagues: Blood, Frogs, Lice, Wild Animals, Cattle Disease, Boils, and Hail. The text...
December 26, 2018
The Jewish Superpower
Shalom Chaverim— This week’s Torah portion, Shemot (Exodus 1:1-6:1), launches us into a new reality (biblically) and a new year (in reality). Our reading sets into motion the series of fortunate and unfortunate events that...
December 19, 2018
Endings and beginnings, blessings and mixed blessings.
Shalom Chaverim— This week’s parasha, Vayechi (Genesis 47:28-50:26), is about endings and beginnings, blessings and mixed blessings, fathers and sons. It depicts the end-of-life stories of Jacob/Israel and Joseph; it closes out Genesis, the first...