Here's something that is probably impossible to fathom and even a little hard to swallow. Imagine working for a non-profit and making a desperate pitch for funds to build your organization or to keep it afloat. The money and materials start coming in ... and do not stop. At a certain point you simply cannot handle the intake and realize you could never use it all. What do you do? Tell people to stop, right? Wait, really? Would you do that? Read more...

Every living thing exhibits a balance between alteration and continuity. A single cell, for example, takes in new substances (food, air, water) and remolds those building blocks to fashion its own form. At the same time that its constituents change, its shape remains the same. Persistence and change, it seems, are simply different phases of the same phenomenon, different faces of the same reality. One cannot successfully remain and thrive without an openness to change, and one cannot retain the energy and will to change without a commitment to something timeless and constant. Read more...

Admit it - it's fun to gossip. As entertainment, gossip is still the choice of millions, because it's free, because it's easy, and because it's accessible. Besides, everyone does it, so a little harmless fun can't hurt anybody, can it? Read more...

With the Book of Va-Yikra (Leviticus) we return to the heart of the Torah, to those remarkable passages that translate the lofty values of Sinai into the concrete practices of everyday life, that instruct how to infuse the most mundane and conventional of deeds with the glow of sanctity, that teach how to invest every moment of our day with the intimacy of God's presence. Read more...

This week’s Torah reading, Va’yikra, begins the third book of the Bible, Leviticus, which combines the details of the Jewish sacrificial rites with the code of Holiness. Having established the covenant and outlining the details for the construction of the Tabernacle in the book of Exodus, the Torah now turns our attention to the ways in which the Tabernacle is to be used for the ongoing interaction between God and humanity, introducing the sacrifices as specific “language” for communication, each one to express a different sentiment. Read more...