It is 10 AM on Tuesday morning, November 4th. As I sit and craft these words, the citizens of the United States are engaged in a great miracle. Today, as they do every four years, they will re-establish a new nation, one in which the People - not government, not military, not wealth, but the people - are sovereign. Today, as is true every four years, the American people reconsider their collective vision of who we are as a nation, what our agenda is to be into the future. Read more...

We have entered this week into what appears to be a “barren month” – Cheshvan - a month with no holidays or even a fast day for relief. But it can be perceived as a month pregnant with potential and promise if we approach it as demanding us to stand alone in our relationship with God – to stand in the world as descendents of Avraham and Sarah, true lovers of God. Read more...

In a society that values the rugged individual, the go-it-alone type, above all else, it is often hard to fathom the biblical-rabbinic commitment to the community and to the people as a whole. We moderns are so used to elevating our own concerns above that over the society, to pursuing our private happiness, even when at the expense of others and of our planet, that we look with horror on any assertions of the priority of the communal and the shared. Read more...

 One of the most passionate divides the separates today’s Jews is the question of the authorship of Torah. According to some groups of Jews, God gave each and every word of the Torah through Moses. Yet other Jews see the Torah as inspired by God’s vision and presence, but with a significant contribution by the people the Torah percolated through. Still others see it as purely a human work – glorious and deep, but human through and through. Read more...

Notice how it's easier to criticize from a distance than it is to make a positive difference?  Sitting in a comfortable chair in the safety of our suburban homes, we peruse the newspapers and comment on the "obvious" solution, even though that solution seems to have escaped the attention of everyone else in the world. Almost everyone succumbs to the temptation to solve the world's problems, over coffee, or while watching the nightly news. But notice how few are the numbers of people who volunteer at the local hospital, for the AIDS walk, or at a nearby synagogue. Read more...