It’s 4:35 in the morning and I’m lying awake waiting to die.  Not that there’s anything wrong with me. Other than the fact I’m convinced...

My mother is 86 years old. She was raised in a non-observant, secular Jewish home just a few blocks from here. As a young adult, she felt...

Here’s the good news: I’m not going to preach to you today. Here’s the bad news: I’m still going to deliver a sermon. What I’m actually...

When people ask about my experience growing up in the Orthodox community and making my way to the Conservative rabbinate, I often hear...

How many times have you been out to dinner with friends and someone looks at you and your spouse or your partner and asks: “ So, how did...

V’asu li mikdash v’shakhanti betokham. Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true. And with thanksgiving, I’ll be...

Drashah 2023/5784: From Days of Fear to Days of Awe Kol Haolam kulo, gesher tzar me’od v’haikar lo lefahed clal…the whole world is a...

Yom Kippur 2022 "Once in a while, you find a place on earth that becomes your very own. A place undefined. Waiting for you to bring your...

First Day Rosh Hashanah 2022/5783 On the night of Monday, April 11 I got one of those phone calls we all dread. And in that uncanny way,...

Two Solitudes Most people don’t know that in the late 1970s, after Shabbat was over in Jerusalem, on the corner of Balfour Street in...

Ancient Persia or Modern America? Delivered March 4, 2023 at B'nai Jeshurun Shabbat Scholar in Residence Shabbat Shalom! I’d like to...

It seems that everyone has something to say about turning 50 – those who’ve been there, and those who observe from afar. Magazines,...

Sometimes he knows who I am; sometimes he doesn’t. I’m not sure which is better. My father’s dementia at times coddles him in blissful...

For a biblical tradition that prides itself on literary efficiency, it’s odd that our Torah portion this morning, Terumah, is the first...

February 18, 2023 | Ivry Have you ever wondered why God made Moses climb up a mountain to get the Torah?  Wouldn’t it have been just as...

Second Day Rosh Hashanah 2022/5783 Of all the commentaries on the Akedah I’ve ever studied, there’s one whose imagination caught my...

Delivered on June 18, 2022 at Shaare Zion Beth El Congregation in Montreal. Many years ago we attended Shabbat morning services at a very...

Seeing the Back, Beholding the Face    I’m meeting Andi in the city one night to attend a Federation event. I enter the crowded, noisy...

Disassembling and Reassembling Torah for a New Generation When it comes to retelling the story of Sinai, in children’s books, museum...