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Fringes of my life

Life is messy. I don’t like messy. I like neat. But neat takes work. Not that messy is so easy. A messy desk and I can’t find a document. A messy calendar and I am missing appointments. And anyone who has been to my home for Shabbat…

Stay calm and don’t panic

Sometimes I panic. Potentially bad news seems disastrous at first. Perhaps you do that too.  Some of it is personality. Sometimes it is because bad things are about to happen and life sometimes sucks. Another component is the nature of…

The Reason for Patience

If patience is a virtue, then I tend not to feel especially virtuous.  Often I want (now) to fix (now) what's wrong in the world (now) – and rush hour traffic can seem like ironically named torture. From feeding our hunger to speaking our…

Save the Bassoonist!

I wonder about the ego of the bassoon player in an orchestra. Most of the glory goes to the first violinist or the piano soloist. Even the cellist sometimes gets a star turn. The poor bassoonist, with his oversized double reed contraption,…

Count me out!

Everyone wants to feel counted. We want to be seen and we want to be included. In a consumer driven, hyperlinked, order it on-line world, what you say and do can count in myriad and unanticipated ways.The book of Numbers (bamidbar) begins…

Lend me an ear

Ever hear someone argue that just being a good person is Jewish enough? By that argument, the myriad laws, the extensive rituals, to wit the Torah, are superfluous if you behave as a good person. I doubt if that view is sufficient.  Torah offers…

Option B

“Facing adversity, building resilience, finding joy.”  That is the subtitle of Sheryl Sandberg’s new book, Option B.  I’m about to download it to my kindle. You likely have heard her story – one of the most successful business people…

What’s Pure?

It's been awhile since I heard the word "pure" except to describe olive oil and Ivory soap – maybe also mountain spring water and 24 carat gold, but not much else. What sense we have of "pure" concerns just a few things, and mainly to mean…

What’s to eat?

Jews spend a lot of time talking about food. There’s nothing like Jewish holidays to get Jews talking about food. During Passover we compare seder menus and debate matzah brei recipes (crispy or pancake style?). Sometimes it seems that the…

Mouthing Off

From a man’s mouth you can tell what he is. (Zohar Bamidbar 193) Passover is a holiday of the mouth. The Hebrew word Pesach can be heard as two words: Peh sach, the speaking mouth. The Passover story of Exodus, liberation and redemption,…