Rabbi's Week in Review Blog

My seminary, the Academy for Jewish Religion (AJR — the one in NYC, not LA), held its annual fall retreat last week. It is a time each year when classes are suspended for the week, and everyone at the seminary comes together to focus on one topic. Alumni are welcome and encouraged to participate, and do participate in significant numbers. This is a real tribute to how AJR graduates/alumni value the time we spent as students at the...Read more...

I am feeling the stress.  As I write this two days before the election, I am taking to heart what any number of pundits have told me: That this is the most consequential election of my lifetime. I know that, for my own sanity, I am only supposed to worry about events that are in my control. Yet I worry on.

According to Dr. Altha Stewart, past president of the American Psychiatric Association, this is mostly the...Read more...

Last week, we read in our Torah about the Tree of Knowledge. While the common assumption and/or interpretation is that Adam and Eve committed a sin by partaking of the Tree of Knowledge, Judaism has always placed the acquisition of knowledge amongst our highest priorities. The knowledge acquired by Adam and Eve in that moment was the most basic level of self-awareness. From that point forward, we have chosen to continue to read, to study, to...Read more...

I have often said that of all the categories of prayer, my favorite is gratitude. As it states in Midrash, Vayikra Rabbah, in Messianic times when all other prayer is unnecessary, we will still be required to offer prayers of gratitude.  

Having gathered mostly virtually for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, this is a time, for me, of enormous gratitude for all those who have put in so many hours to make our worship meaningful and...Read more...

This Rosh Hashanah began with the sad news of the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  There is an understanding that those who die on Rosh Hashanah are seen as tzaddiks — among the righteous of our people. This seems particularly appropriate in memorializing the life of Justice Ginsburg.

Her tireless work for justice on behalf of women, and anyone who was marginalized as an outsider, was informed by Jewish history in general...Read more...