INDEPENDENT Maybe not edit. Maybe just proofread and add a comma or a few comments in the margin. If circumstances require, perhaps add an exclamation mark, or in a dire situation, all caps and in bold. Run-on sentences can muddle our intent, although you might get...
Our reaction to the events in Pittsburgh began with mourning for the victims. From mourning we moved to the legitimate fear that comes from living in a nation where easily procured weapons of mass death terrorize people of color, Muslims, LGBTQ people and—as always—Jews. ...
“Do we gossip? Do we repost stories about friends, family or colleagues that ought not be repeated? Do we believe everything we read?”...
“Would your Jewish robot be like the Jetsons’ Rosie, who’d make perfect Shabbat challah and your aunt’s amazing latkes?”...
“When Jews gathered as religious communities, we didn't have to tolerate significant differences: When we disagreed, we just founded a new synagogue with the like-minded. The political arena demands something different. ” INDEPENDENT Judaism is an alter kocker. It doesn’t change. It only gets more wrinkles. Rather...
Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that know You not, and upon the families that call not on Your name; for they have devoured Jacob, yea, they have devoured him and consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation...
In every contact with serial bullies, victimizers or predators, we must carefully balance natural empathy for the person before us with solidarity and justice concerning the victims. Teshuvah (repentance) is always the goal, yet false expressions of remorse are an abuser’s modus operandi. INDEPENDENT Many a predator...
INDEPENDENT: Time is an invitation. Both words share the same root: z’mahn. It is written: “The life of man is like a breath exhaling; his days are like a passing shadow” (Psalms 144:4). ...
“I used to think I knew what Islam was about. Yet as I came to know more Muslims personally and learned more about their faith, I realized that much of what I knew was either flat-out wrong or grossly misguided.”...
INDEPENDENT Intermarriage is a reality of American Jewish life that isn’t receding, no matter how valiant the efforts to counter it. The central challenge to American Judaism isn’t intermarriage; it’s disaffected Jews who lack the knowledge and inspiration to live Jewish lives. Our job as rabbis...