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...

Jews the world over are getting ready for our annual period of introspection, prayer, and gathering. Beginning with the moving Selihot services last Saturday evening/Sunday morning, moving through Rosh Ha-Shanah and culminating in Kol Nidrei and Yom Kippur, we will use our time to consider who we have become in the past year, we will contemplate the gap between our highest ideals and our actual behavior, and we will seek to make amends to ourselves, to each other, and to God. In that ancient renewal of soul and society, our Judaism offers us potent tools to assist us in our task: Read more...