Every year, during the Rosh Ha-Shanah services, we confront one of the Torah’s most terrifying texts. What are we to make of the Akedah, the sacrifice of Isaac, in which the father of our people is called to murder his son as an act of religious obedience?  What are we to make of a test in which killing a beloved child constitutes success and refusing entails ultimate ontological failure?  What are we to do with such a terrible story?  Read more...

When my children were young, they fell in love with Disney's The Lion King. We saw the film three times in the theater and owned all the paraphernalia Disney would sell us. We played the soundtrack in the car each morning on the way to school, belting out the film's stirring theme song, "The Circle of Life" until one morning I listened to the words. Read more...

As Jews we embrace each new season. Spring, and the month of Nisan, is the season of our renewal as a People. With Pesach we celebrate our redemption by the hand of God and our birth as a Nation. We begin our summer with the month of Sivan and the holiday of Shevuoth, the commemoration of the revelation of God's Law at Sinai. Read more...

Over the next two weeks, Jews all over the world will gather together, spending many an hour in communal prayer.  Finding one’s own voice of prayer, however, can sometimes seem like an insurmountable task. Read more...

I want to tell you a story of a man who lived nine hundred years ago around the times of the Crusades, Rabbi Amnon of Mainz.  Rabbi Amnon was a very prominent leader in the Jewish community. Read more...