PUBLICATIONS

Green Love: Expanding Jewish Empathy to the Planet

It’s rare for people to have a reference point in their lives to which they can return over and over, year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation. Yet, such is the gift of our cottage in Quebec’s Laurentian Mountains, a short hour’s drive from the city of Montreal, where I was born and raised. My family built it in 1966, two years before I was born. It has been a home to me for every one of my 57 years.

It’s Time For Conservative Jews To Embrace Sexual Fluidity

“Homosexuality, Human Dignity and Halakhah” was approved by the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) on December 6, 2006, representing a watershed moment for the Conservative Movement. Rigorous scholarship, moral clarity and rabbinic courage provided…

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Shevirah — Brokenness

Smashing the tablets on the slopes of Sinai, Moses chooses an imperfect, unpredictable people over inviolable, unchanging tablets and initiates the sacred dynamic of rewriting Torah in every generation…

How Religion and Spirituality Affect Divorce

It’s a sad fact that many people don’t get divorced, or feel more shame and judgment about their divorce, based on their religious and cultural beliefs. Divorce doesn’t just affect you and your partner and children…

And Now…

Far from the anticipated euphoria of Hillary Clinton shattering the proverbial glass ceiling, our country awoke to a nation deeply, dangerously splintered. The shards are not only…

The Dangers of Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving, like every other, families will gather around their tables and express gratitude for all the blessings that fill their lives, for all the good that exists in the world. We…

Jerusalem is a thriving city. Why on Tisha B’Av do we mourn its destruction?

Fasting and praying for 25 hours — many of them sweltering — isn’t anyone’s idea of summer vacation. But that’s not the only reason Tisha B’Av (the 9th day of the Hebrew month of…

The Miracle in Sarah’s Tent

In this week’s Torah portion we encounter Isaac deep in mourning for his mother, Sarah. The Rabbis suggest he was inconsolable until he met his future wife, Rebecca…

Travel as a Spiritual Practice

It was a journey within a journey. We toured Sicily while also making the metaphorical and spiritual voyage from Egypt to Sinai during the 49 days of the Omer, the ritual counting…

The Perfection of Imperfection

The author argues that the details of this ritual defy rational explanation. She reviews the different interpretations that ancient scholars came up with to understand this…

Five Jewish Gifts for Valentine’s Day

To give chocolate hearts and mushy cards, or not to give? For some, it’s a bold prospect, taking the relationship to another level. For others, it’s a question of Jewish identity and…

Re-Membering: Moral Complexity as the Antidote to Moral Confusion

While I was in Israel for a month to celebrate Pesach with my daughter, Nomi, who’s studying in Jerusalem, I had the added gift of being there for what some call the modern Jewish…

Shavuot is about breaking the tablets, and putting them back together

The festival of Shavuot, which begins at sundown May 30, focuses on Moses receiving the tablets of the law. But an even more fascinating part of the story is when he shatters…

Intermarriage, I Do!

It was an intimate wedding at our local park where we take the dogs to run and where we throw our crusted sins into the stream each year on Rosh Hashanah. Between the couple…

Hate Also Kills

It’s hard explaining to my children why some people seek to do them harm simply because they’re Jews. It’s harder still that I can’t protect them from the violent hatred that…

Remembrance of Sam Harel Price

On Nov 10, 2013, an email arrived in my inbox from Sam Price asking about shadowing me for a month to learn about the life of a rabbi, a life Sam thought about pursuing for…