Blogs

Terri has been collecting my various writings on our Israel trip.  They amount now to around 4000 words, which for me is the equivalent of two high holiday sermons.  I feel as though I have another 40,000 words here inside me, but I think they will have to come out in other ways.  They will do so over time, in response to your questions and in dialogue with one another.

Still, I feel the need to offer some concluding remark - not to end the discussion, but to give all the particulars of which I have spoken and written a larger context.  And so let me say a word or two about עם ישראל - the people of Israel.  Read more...

Our Torah portion begins the story of Joseph.  At the outset, we are told that Joseph is sent out to watch his brothers as they are shepherding the family cattle:

וַיָּבֵ֥א יוֹסֵ֛ף אֶת־דִּבָּתָ֥ם רָעָ֖ה אֶל־אֲבִיהֶֽם
Joseph brought bad reports to his father.

We also learn that Jacob favored Joseph and loved him more than his other sons.  Then we learn of Joseph’s...Read more...

"It's a new world.  A new world: love."

Perhaps you recognize those words as the opening to the song “Do You Love Me” from Fiddler on the Roof.  For those of you who don’t, let me give you a little background.  Our beloved hero, Sholem Aleichem's Tevye the dairyman, has just told his wife Golde that he has yet again abrogated his paternal responsibility of choosing a suitable husband for one of their daughters, in...Read more...

Terri and I own a lovely set of Lenox china for which we registered at Macy’s when we got married thirty-seven years ago.  The plates, cups, saucers and serving dishes are all tastefully displayed in the mahogany china cabinet that once belonged to my grandmother.  And not one of those pieces has ever held a morsel of food.

For the first few years of our marriage, that china remained boxed and stored until we had a...Read more...

Watch our own Rabbi Bruce Alpert discuss how fundamental Jewish values inform our eagerness for scientific knowledge and how that knowledge is helping make Israel a driving force in creating a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable world.

Like many of us, I was taken by William Shatner's brief journey into space this week. I was never a big fan of Star Trek, but I have always found Shatner an endearing man – one who seems to exude an innate joyfulness and the admirable quality of not taking himself too seriously. But his reaction to going...Read more...

Judaism is not a religion. It’s a nationality.

That statement will come as a shock to many of you. On all those forms we fill out, Jewish is the word we write in the blank next to the word “Religion.” And in the blank next to...Read more...

November 9, 1938 is known as Kristallnacht - the night of broken glass; a massive pogrom through Germany in which Jewish homes, hospitals, schools, synagogues and businesses were ransacked and destroyed by the Nazi party’s paramilitary force, the SA. Hundreds of Jews were...Read more...

“Save me, God; for the waters are come in even unto the soul. I am sunk in deep mire, where there is no standing…let not the flood water overwhelm me, neither let the deep swallow me up."

Those words are from the 69th Psalm, attributed to King David. But we are taught...Read more...