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Asking Without Stressing
The mere act of asking is emotionally challenging. We don’t want to seem weak or stupid or be an imposition on others. So we hesitate to ask. We can update our perspective on asking based upon the Torah reading for Toldot, which shifts some of the focus to the person being asked. Isaac is 40 years old…
November 8, 2015
In Trust We God (all others pay cash)
New corporations like Uber and Air BnB remind us that the essential factor for an economy to exist is trust. Not capital, not skills, but trust. Certainly, the sharing economy doesn’t work without buyers trusting service providers. This week’s Torah portion, Chaye Sarah, demonstrates how trust is not only a necessary element of economic transactions but…
November 1, 2015
Bargaining with God
Be honest: at pivotal life moments – maybe when you thought nobody else was listening – you bargained with God. Maybe it was immature jitters ("Lemme get an 'A' on this test and I'll be good forever!"); maybe it was mature worry ("Let the test results be negative and I promise to quit smoking"). Whether…
October 24, 2015
Continuing the Journey
A journey of one thousand miles begins with a single step. How does a journey of three thousand years begin? When Abram's father, Terach, leaves Ur to go to Canaan, there is no obvious motivation for this journey. In fact, he settles down before reaching his intended destination. Did he, like many of us, just…
October 20, 2015
Steak Dinner for Noah?
I found one of the most absurd moments in Torah in the reading for this week, parashat Noah. One particular verse made me lose my appetite and tested my theology. That’s a lot for one Torah reading. We read that for forty days and forty nights Noah, his family, and an assemblage of the animals…
October 10, 2015
False Starts and the Art of Renewal
Beginnings tend to be messy: ask anyone who's ever given birth, tilled the soil, sculpted, composed, or built something to last. By their nature, beginnings tend to begin unformed and void, at first dark and uncertain, then haltingly lurch toward something-ness. Each year, Jews recycle Torah and begin its reading anew. This week we again…
October 4, 2015
Creation and the Sukkah
Sukkot – the holiday called the time of our joy, Z’man Simchateinu. The sukkah, the structure which we erect for the holiday of sukkot evokes both the time of wandering in the wilderness during which time God provided us with food and protection and the huts used during the harvest season, the culmination of a…
September 29, 2015
Have We Forgotten How to Remember?
For nearly 30 years I have practiced as a lawyer in the field of trusts and estates. I’ve referred to it as a practice in death, dying and disability. Not the comedy portion of the law. As a Rabbi, I’m called upon to officiate at funerals and unveilings. This past Shabbat I sat with a couple…
September 24, 2015
The Poem of Your LIfe
What a week we've reached! The Days of Awe, days of introspection, Yom Kippur, rehearsing death (reminding us of our impermanent lives), reaching for the angels of our better and purest nature, ushering in the harvest of Sukkot. It's a lot. It's the whole cycle of time, the inner work of a lifetime, telescoped into…
September 20, 2015
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