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Leaving on a Jet Plane…
Shalom. Tomorrow I leave for Vienna. It is the first stop on my four country, two continent summer of learning. I will be joining the Centropa Summer Academy (http://csa2014.centropa.org/) in Vienna, Zagreb and Sarajevo to learn about the causes of World War I, the connection between WWI and WWII and the Holocaust and also to… →
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D’var Torah – Parshat Eikev 5772
(This d’var Torah was given on August 11, 2012 at Beth Shalom, Seattle) The last two summers, while in Jerusalem, I frequently went to Kabbalat Shabbat services at Mayanot – a warm and welcoming little shul in Sha’arei Hesed. At first I wasn’t sure I really wanted to go as it has a mechitzah… →
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Traveling North and Heading Home
After a very hot and sweaty visit to the Kotel at high noon, I am back in the air conditioned comfort of Aroma in the Mamilla Mall. I was going to visit a different one, but it is just to blasted hot out there to walk any further than I have to do to anything.… →
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A moment to think and reflect
Shalom for Aroma’s in the Mamilla Mall. Those who follow me on Facebook – or who remember last year’s trip – will know that Aroma is my favorite place in Israel. I just had a wonderful conversation with two women on a trip with their Reconstructionist congregation in Washington D.C. and was happy to be… →
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Grasping for Moshiah or How Not to Hasten the Messianic Age
So, after reading this morning about a rabbi in B’nai Brak who has banned the use of tap water or flushing of toilets on Shabbat due to the fact that it will cause an electronic water pump to kick on, I got to thinking about all of this recent extremism among the Haredim. I try… →
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My Thoughts on Prayer
So, I was working on some curriculum for my Theology class on Prayer and wrote the following piece. It is the result of many years of thinking about prayer and pulls from a piece that I wrote for Rosh HaShana a couple of years ago to introduce the Musaf Amidah. It is written specifically about… →
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More Cousins Met and a Frenzied Farewell
One of the last things we had left to do in Israel was meet some cousins of Steve’s from his mother’s father’s side of the family. We had been working on getting together for a couple of weeks and were able to make time at the very end of our visit when everyone would be… →
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Final Days–Simcha and Sadness
I am sitting on my flight getting near to Philadelphia as I am writing this post. The time since Friday afternoon when I wrote my last post has just flown by all too quickly. The bat mitzvah began with Kabbalat Shabbat as the sun was going down Friday evening. Kabbalat Shabbat is not a… →
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Great Beauty and Reminders of Ugliness
Yesterday we went to a second beach on the Dead Sea to soak again. This time we went to Ein Gedi. The beach looked quite promising from the parking lot with umbrellas and a covered walkway. This was all, however, up a very rocky hill from the actual “beach”. You literally had to scurry down… →
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