The Light of God Comes Down to Us All at Once

Sarcasm is said to be a sign of intelligence. Oscar Wilde perhaps said it best. “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit but the highest form of intelligence.”I find it to both be and not be such a sign. I have a little to go on. It’s an east coast thing, and although I intentionally left New York and so much of what it stands for, there’s this NY part of me that’s always been reluctant to let go of things sardonic.

Tazria Metzora: Beyond the Binary

A couple of days ago I encountered a marvelous commentary on this week’s Torah parshah (reading) of Tazria-Metzora. It was composed by Joy Ladin, who occupies the Gottesman Chair in English at Yeshiva University, America’s flagship Orthodox institute. She is also the only openly out trans professor at YU of whom I am aware.

Events in Our Community–Cantor Visit, Israel360 and Yom HaShoah

Cantor Sharon Grainer, our first cantorial candidate is here! She currently serves in Philadelphia at the venerable Temple BZBI, which can trace its roots back to 1840. Before cantorial school, she studied Yiddish and literature at the University of Toronto, spent a year at the Pardes Institute of Jewish studies in Jerusalem and overall has had an interesting Jewish path.

The Ethics of Judaism and the Passover Story

Wednesday night marked the end of the first two days of our weeklong celebration of Passover. That meant I finally returned on-line and caught up on some news. Like many people, I was disturbed to see some videos taken when United Airlines asked local law enforcement to remove Dr. David Dao from one of their planes. The trail of his blood left on the plane and his face was gruesome.

The Everlasting Story of Passover

In younger days, I had a more literary bent. That meant I spent far more time with books than I permit myself now. For my first two and a half decades, I imbibed novels. Dostoevsky, Gogol, Thomas Hardy, William Makepeace Thackeray. Joseph Conrad, Chinua Achebe and Robert A. Heinlein. Ursula K. LeGuin, Isaac Babel and Neal Stephenson.