Rabbi's Week in Review Blog

Fay and I saw a wonderful movie last week, The Taste of Things. A gourmet, Dodin, and his cook, Eugenie, develop a beautiful romance over 20 years, with food being at the center of their lives. The dialogue is sparse, but it is the sounds made in the cooking involved and the spectacular meals (extravaganzas involving many, many courses) that take center stage in the film.

While we longed for smell-a-vision, as well as just a taste of...Read more...

Last week, Fay and I attended another of the Trailblazing Talks, the speaker series at the Kauffman Center, this one titled “From Sandlots to Stadiums.” The featured presenter was sports photographer Jean Fruth. This followed the previous week’s program presented by the Jewish Experiences program through The J and Jewish Federation, featuring the great sports (and particularly baseball) writer Joe Posnanski. The program took place at...Read more...

This past Shabbat morning, a group of us Kol Ami-nicks got up at the crack of dawn and headed to our state capital of Jefferson City. We celebrated Shabbat together and then, as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel z”l said, we prayed with our feet. As part of a kickoff event for the Poor People’s Campaign, we held a rally in the rotunda of the Capitol.  

This was a kickoff to an effort of the next weeks and months to register...Read more...

For the next couple of weeks, I will be providing information on an important event taking place March 2 in Jefferson City, Mo. I would be more than remiss, however, if I did not make some mention of the horrific shooting that took place at the end of the Chiefs Super Bowl celebration.

I, like many with whom I have spoken, have feelings of both sadness and anger. Sadness over life lost and lives irreparably changed for worse, due to...Read more...

I had the chance to have breakfast this past week with a valued friend, the Rev. Dr. Rodney Williams. As always, the conversation was far-ranging, catching up on the personal, the work of our respective congregations, and our shared work in pursuing justice.  

How we approach our various relationships seems to be a topic that crosses all facets of our lives. More specifically, whether the way we and others engage is done...Read more...