Dear Friends, When I picked up my first grader from Yavneh this week, I saw these beautiful posters that the class had made, depicting themselves standing at the base of Mount Sinai as the Ten Commandments were given. Their pictures were adorable – big smiles, lots of pigtails, wiggly arms, a blank piece of purple paper, Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, First, I want to share my words from yesterday in case you didn’t already have a chance to read them: “We were all celebrating at the Capitol Jewish Museum just a few weeks ago. Last night, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, two Israeli embassy staffers – soon to be engaged, according to people Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, This past Sunday afternoon, a number of Jewish organizations I follow and admire, including T’ruah and the New Israel Fund, held a gathering at the White House to cry for an end to the war, feed the hungry in Gaza, and free the hostages. I would have gone, but I was getting ready for Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, I want to start off with a prayer for the safety of human life. May all of our dear ones in Israel feel our love. May every individual in Israel, Iran, and across the region who are not in control of the bombs, the threats, and the violence find safety, resilience, and protection. Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, Last Thursday morning (not this week; the one before), I opened the door of my home to find that our family’s mezuzah had been ripped from the doorpost and taken. I don’t know why. I have some hypotheses. They all feel pretty awful. I spent the day angry — and a little scared, Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, The month of Tammuz is here – chodesh tov! Summer camp has begun, the summer solstice has just passed, and it is so, so ridiculously hot. As many of us look to slightly more relaxed schedules, an approaching vacation, or just a memory of what it meant to be an unprogrammed kid during a 20th Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, In this week’s parsha, as the Israelites are minding their own business, wandering through the wilderness in an inefficient attempt to reach the Promised Land, a Moabite king sees them passing and gets intimidated. Afraid of the approaching Israelites, King Balak hires a spiritual hitman named Balaam to curse them. On the way to his Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, This week, in Parshat Pinchas, Moses hears something devastating: he won’t be entering the Promised Land. After forty years of leadership, enormous challenges, and steadfast hope despite it all, he’ll get to see the land from a distance, but he won’t be able to live there, or even set foot inside it. He Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, Chodesh tov – welcome to the month of Av. We’re moving into late summer, and a traditional time of communal grief. The 9th of Av and the days moving into it aren’t exactly a time to reflect on what’s weighing on us as individuals – they’re a time to honor the traumas we’ve experienced as Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, Tuesday night was wild. Dianne Schwager came to speak about her family’s Holocaust story and it was intense. I feel like it was much more understated than other accounts I’d heard of. There was no hiding out in a barn. No wandering through the woods. No detailed accounts of concentration camp life. And the banality of the whole thing Continue Reading »