On these darkest of days of the year our ancestors around the world sought to push away the gloom with holidays of light. This year it seems we need to…
Why I love City Congregation for Secular Humanistic Judaism I love City Congregation because I am surrounded by a community of people who share my values. ‘Love your neighbor as yourself that is the entire Torah’. I…
Many years ago I wrote a poem that begins: “I sing when the day comes / For at night there is only anguish.” This poem comes to mind this year…
Yesterday something changed for me. Until yesterday I believed that my days of stopping traffic, of getting arrested, of civil disobedience were over, at least until my beautiful children were…
Today, when the words from Washington are so dark, I am trying to focus on Martin Luther King’s dream at the Lincoln memorial: “We refuse to believe that the bank…
The period of 49 days between the holidays of Passover and Pentecost (Pesach and Shavuot) which we find ourselves in is very special to me, since it is when I…
Where am I from? As perennial immigrants, Jews have been asking themselves this question from time immemorial. For many scions of families who survived the Holocaust (as mine did), this…
The Passover Haggadah offers the traditional Exodus origin story basing itself on a rabbinic understanding of the Hebrew Bible. One of the most powerful sayings in the Rabbinic compilations of…
The Jewish calendar generally associates spring with the holiday of Passover, but since the calendar fluctuates with the tides of the moon, this year the beginning of spring coincides with…