Rabbi's Week in Review Blog

I sort of watched the debate last week. I was on a website that was providing occasional commentary and I would selectively unmute. I have read a good deal of follow-up and, yes, I do think there was a clear winner. That said, my thoughts turned toward what a win would like for the American people and for our Jewish people. As it turns out, they are really much the same.

Our Jewish values obligate us toward the strangers in our midst,...Read more...

We look forward this week to celebrating the bar mitzvah of Elliot Sutkin. Becoming a bat/bar mitzvah, a child of the commandments, is a rite of passage in the Jewish world. It is, for those we celebrate, a time when they begin to take on obligations to participate in, and provide support to, the community.  

It is actually the community’s celebration. Observing the commandments, knowing that it is through ethical and...Read more...

This past Sunday evening into Monday was Tu B’Av, the 15th day of the month of Av. It is a lesser known, post-biblical celebration, reflecting a time in Jewish history celebrating the beginning of the grape harvest and, of greater prominence, a day of love and connection. For easy reference and understanding, it is characterized by some as a Jewish Valentine’s Day.

There is no specific ritual connected to Tu B’Av other than...Read more...

An article in The New Yorker by Corey Robin explores the times in our history when Jews have been relatively safe and times when we have been under a greater threat of antisemitism. His overarching observation is that Jews have done better under democracies, wherein we did not need specific laws for our protection and we focused our engagement in society more on how we protected other marginalized communities rather than ourselves.

By...Read more...

I had a great blog just about to go in the hopper this week. But in our present environment, decades of history seem to be compacted into weekly occurrences that change the calculus and, at the very least, make previous intended missives if not irrelevant, at least beside the point.

With that in mind, I will simply say this: Depending on where you sit within the political spectrum, the range of emotions seems to lean negative —...Read more...