When Neil Armstrong passed away in August, 2012, I felt moved to honor his memory with these words as we sounded the shofar a few weeks later. I find this message ever more relevant and even urgent, and I share it with you again as the New Year approaches. Blowing the Shofar in Memory of […]
Archive | Teachings
The Month of Elul: Calling Us Back to Love
Dear Friends, Tonight is the New Moon of Elul, the month that precedes Rosh Hashanah. Elul calls us to prepare our hearts for the New Year. This weekend I am leading an LSI workshop on teshuvah, repentance and return, here at the WJC. I wanted to share with you some thoughts on this month of […]
Now I Have a Story to Tell
[Last weekend my daughter was off enjoying the annual Ulster County Fair. It reminded me of this story from several years ago. Enjoy, and Shabbat Shalom! -JK] In July, I visited the Ulster County Fair with my family. Nomi had her good friend Ana along, and the two 9-year-olds were sampling the midway. After surviving […]
Hillel and Shammai: How to Disagree
Dear Friends, The Ninth of Av arrives tomorrow evening, and with it the remembrance of Jerusalem’s destruction almost 2,000 years ago. Our Sages, searching for the causes of this catastrophe, taught that one of the reasons was that Jews at the time treated each other with sin’at chinam – baseless and gratuitous hatred and disdain. […]
The Month of Av: Exile and Return
Dear Friends, Today is Rosh Hodesh Av, the new moon of the month of Av. In “Jewish time”, we are in the midst of the period known as the Three Weeks. According to the Talmud, it was during these three weeks in the year 70 C.E. that the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem and […]
“On Care for Our Common Home”: The Encyclical Letter of Pope Francis
Dear Friends, This seems to be my season for interfaith exploration, and my horizons are expanding. I just spent an hour perusing Pope Francis’ remarkable and inspiring letter addressing the phenomenon of global climate change. The full text is 180 pages long, and I skimmed some sections, but I intend to return to the document […]
Travel Diary: Three Days at an Ashram
Dear Friends, A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit the Sivananada Yoga Ashram on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. I had been invited to be one of the presenters at an interfaith symposium, “Prayer as a Path to Bliss.” What a lovely opportunity this was – pretty blissful, I must say! […]
Beha’alotcha: The Anti-Militarism of the Rabbis
The following essay is gently adapted from A Yom Kippur sermon entitled “Living To Tell the Tale: The Anti-Militarism of the Rabbis” that I offered in 2007. You can find the original in my collection of essays “Hineni: Essays and Torah Commentaries from Twenty-Five Years on the Bimah”. You can learn more about the book, […]
An Unexpected Trip to Israel, Part 2: Music Everywhere
Dear Friends, Last Friday I shared with you in detail about the Catholic-Jewish Conference that brought me to Israel last week. In this installment I would like to share another aspect of my trip that I found very moving. Israel is a small country essentially overflowing with passion and energy. The Galilee is the beautiful […]
An Unexpected Trip To Israel: Catholic-Jewish Dialogue
About three weeks ago I received a call from a dear colleague, asking me if I would like an all-expense-paid trip to an interfaith conference in Israel? A few phone calls later I knew only a little bit more. A Catholic organization known as the Neocatechumenal Way was organizing a meeting for rabbis and Catholic […]