Maybe our journeys of hardship and danger are not tests of endurance or tests of faith. If they are tests of anything, maybe they are tests of love.
Read moreEyleh Had'varim: Famous Last Words (Audio Podcast)
Ultimately, an ethical will is for us, not for our children or grandchildren. Because we can’t really control what people in the post-us future will do. We can’t force those who follow us into a mold of our devising. The future belongs to them, not to us, and it is a mistake to cling too tightly.
Read moreThe Light in the Middle of the Tunnel (Audio Podcast)
Since we began sheltering in place, we have, by my count, spent 69 consecutive Shabbatot together, here in this dazzling Zoom Room. Sixty-nine opportunities to sit together and breathe. Six-nine opportunities to gently push back against the narrowness of the time. To feel expansive. Shabbat has been our technology for resilience. The light inside the tunnel.
Not One Left (Audio Podcast)
Moses witnessed the end of a generation. Last week, so did I.
Read moreJunco Torah (Audio Podcast)
The flora and fauna at my house are very, very alive. There are many personalities crowding around our house, and under our house, and sometimes in our house. Each has its own Torah. Each has its unintended teaching for me.
Read moreBlessings During a Surge of Violence (Audio Podcast)
B’rukhah haTikvah
Blessed be my hope, which continues to live. May it be not fantasy but demand. A demand upon heaven and a demand upon earth. May hope be rewarded, speedily, in our time. Rewarded with peace. Rewarded with breath. Rewarded with ordinary, unremarkable coexistence. Rewarded with yet more hope.
Sixes and Sevens (Audio Podcast)
Today is the 6th day of the 7 days of the 6th week of the 7 weeks of the Omer. And here we are in the 6th year of the 7-year shmitah cycle. What does it mean to be in the 6, anticipating the 7?
Mt. Meron, Zohar, and Us (Audio Podcast)
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai died and was buried on Mt. Meron, having instructed his disciples to visit his grave and celebrate his memory annually. Which is what was happening yesterday, because the number of his disciples has grown, no longer ten, but tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and includes all of those people who were there, just as it includes us as well.
To Be Impervious (Audio Podcast)
Oh to be so impervious! To hold the weight of the hardship of the people and for it not to absorb through our skin and into our bones! But no, we are so porous. N’kavim n’kavim chalulim chalulim as we say in our morning prayers. We are porous and penetrable! We were made that way.
Read morePesach 7: Obstacles, Love, Dew, and the Sea (Audio Podcast)
This seventh day of Pesach is an intersection of Shabbat time, Passover time, mythic story, Divine names, the coming of dew, and the poetry of our medieval ancestors. It brings to mind obstacles, liberation, and love. (Or just scroll down for the treats.)
Read moreShabbat HaGadol: Between the Generations (Audio Podcast)
On Shabbat HaGadol we read from the prophet Malachi, who envisions a time when the hearts of children turn toward parents and the hearts of parents toward children. How do we turn our hearts to all the ancestors and to the people who will follow us on this earth? What is the healing we need and the healing we can offer?
Read moreNot-One, Not-Two, Not-Three (Audio Podcast)
Why don’t Jews count people? No sooner do we count ourselves than we notice our extreme vulnerability and ephemerality in this life and this world. And thus the inherent bravery implied in the phrase “stand up and be counted.”
Read moreShechinah Swoon (Audio Podcast)
Unlike some depictions, Esther had no need to swoon when she entered Achashverosh's throne room. After all, she was garbed in Shechinah.
I explore this moment and its mysticism more deeply in an article in Evolve Magazine. Click here.
In the Oasis (Audio Podcast)
We are in a kind of oasis moment right now. A place of respite does not need to be the perfect place or the best place. It just needs to be enough. And the relief and rest we feel will be real.
Ordination and Insurrection (Audio Podcast)
The author as summer camp rabbi, Oconomowoc, WI, 1975. Photo by Dawn Weiner-Kaplow.
Tomorrow is the simcha of my smicha – my rabbinic ordination. It means so much to me after a wait of more than half a century. But history waits for no simcha, and we have to also look at this week’s insurrection in our capital.
Read more2020 Hindsight (Audio Podcast)
Despite the “good riddance 2020” memes, I actually feel that the last year, with all its challenges and surprises, needs to be seen and considered. I think about our forefather Jacob, who this week gives a farewell assessment of each of his twelve unruly sons. I know how much we want to say goodbye to these last twelve unruly months that brought us so much angst, but let’s take a look.
In a Christmas Mood (Audio Podcast)
Making friends with Jesus, figuring out a handle for Christ, and managing Jewish Christmas guilt.
Read moreThat Light in Joseph (Audio Podcast)
Joseph, Overseer of Pharaoh’s Granaries. By Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1874. Source: Wikipedia.
One often-overlooked dimension of Joseph’s hiddenness has to do with his gender. Torah keeps pointing to something unusual about it. This includes references to his looks, his emotions, his social role, even his body.
Read moreTo Love the Absent Mind (Audio Podcast)
I return from a 6-week leave of absence with questions , raised by an unfortunate meeting of home and car, about my own mind’s sudden leave of absence.
Read moreLet it Rain (Audio Podcast)
I am worried that our will to live is being depleted. Not that people are dying because they gave up. Although clearly the world has become less hospitable, and our assessment of what future we might look forward to has shifted. But I'm talking about something beyond that. There is something about the usual flow of life through us and through this Creation that feels to be at risk.
