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In Episode Seven of The Tisch Rabbi Michael Rose Knopf invites us to join him in his weekly tisch at Har Zion Temple in Penn Valley, PA. According to Rabbi Moses Cordovero, God looks for the goodness in all of us, even (and especially) when we appear not to demonstrate it. God focuses on the good […]
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Camp is over, after a great season. Today is Rosh Hodesh Elul, and I’m back in New York. Summer is departing, and autumn looms. (And I will resume blogging. Thanks for patience during a hiatus.) I love autumn, my favorite season. It brings me football, and leaves carried on cool breezes, increasingly frantic preparations […]
In episode twelve of The JCast Journey, host Darone Ruskay interviews Jonah Geffen, the writer of Ish Ben Partzi, the first blog on JCast Network. Darone and Jonah discuss his background, what he is doing now, and what his vision for the Ish Ben Partzi blog. While we are thrilled to have Ish Ben Partzi […]
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Jerry Garcia died the day I left Albany for good, August 9, 1995. In an apparent murder-suicide, he took my childhood with him. (NOTE TO MILLENNIAL FUCKWADS: I don’t want to hear how old you were in 1995. Whether you were in Middle School, Elementary School or Diapers, I don’t want to know about it. And wipe that patronizing “listening to Grampa Simpson tell his Lollapalooza Mosh-Pit Stories for the 10,000th Time” smirk off your soul-patched, hipster side-burned, weasely little face. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the suckers who showed up too late to the Great Global House Party of cheap gas, music videos and nuclear anxiety that was the 20th Century and arrived just in time to mop up the puke, save the polar bears, and recycle our empties to pay for healthcare. Have fun with that, kids. Hey- if you’re lucky, maybe you can scrape out a little resin ball of Contentment from the huge bowl of Prosperity we smoked last century. That was some gooooood shit.)
Anyhow, I always felt like by dying right as I left my hometown for the Big City, that Jerry was looking out for me, protecting me from myself. It’s like he was saying: “Hey man, I know you’re moving to New York to follow your dreams and that’s groovy and all, but it’s going to suck major dog-balls for the first few years, so, if you don’t mind, I’m just going to go ahead and die That way, while you’re telemarketing credit cards to old people who can barely afford the minimum payment, or cleaning toilets in comedy clubs for stage time and tips, or getting turned down for that sweet job at Brookstone (fucking personality test- I was this close before they made me take that thing. Angry and anti-social my fucking balls, you ass-face corporate novelty electronics retail Nazi pigs!) you won’t be kicking yourself the whole time for not dropping out of life instead and following me around in a beat up purple school bus called the 420 Express (next stop- Terrapin Station) playing bongos and selling Super Kind Veggie Burritos in the parking lot outside Giants Stadium before scoring that miracle ticket and catching your 10,000th show. Nope, I’m just gonna die and take this happy, hairy, hippy fantasy down to the grave with me so that you can just keep grinding away in miserable under-employment until you make something halfway useful out of yourself. I mean, what’s the alternative- follow Phish? Phuck that.”
Shoftim continues with Moses’ teaching about rules of governance once the children of Israel enter into the promised land. The insistence that any society created be based on justice and shun corruption by leaders and the avoidance of contamination by Canaanite culture is a central theme of Deuteronomy. F>or jurists to be fair and true […]
The Torah Portion Re’eh begins with God’s words as communicated by Moses. “See: I’m putting in front of you today a blessing and a curse:” (Deuteronomy 11:26)* We learn that we’ll receive God’s blessing if we listen to (and act upon) God’s commandments. We’ll be cursed if we don’t listen and allow ourselves to be […]
In Episode Six of The Tisch Rabbi Michael Rose Knopf invites us to join him in his weekly tisch at Har Zion Temple in Penn Valley, PA. According to Rabbi Moses Cordovero, God does not let God’s anger dictate God’s actions. So too, we must be careful not to be so overcome with anger that our […]
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This month, The NYC Jewish Tech Meetup welcomed speaker Micah Sifry. Micah is the co-founder and Executive Editor of the Personal Democracy Forum and its blog TechPresident. He is a prolific author, most recently the author of WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency. In this podcast, Sifry discusses the changes in “publishing” and the ways that technology have leveled the playing field of public communication. Syfry explores the societal affects of these changes, and discusses how this effects us all.
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There is a challenge to us all found in this week’s parasha – Re’eh – it is there right from the start. Put up or shut up, says God.
“Behold, this day I set before you a blessing and a curse.” (Devarim 11:26)
We have a choice, says God – chose the right path or the wrong one. This is the reality of freedom, the idea that we constantly make decisions and that those decisions have consequences. I have been thinking a great deal about this idea in the wake of this past week’s terror attacks near Eilat.
Each and every moment of life we make decisions, and no matter how much we like to blame others for forcing us to make them – it is us in the end who acts, who does the deed. Those who snuck into Israel with the intention to kill as many as possible almost certainly blame Israel for causing their actions – but they pulled the triggers. They chose the curse.
And those who decided to respond in kind by ordering bombs dropped, those who fired across the border, those who drop their quest for a new social order, they chose too. And they also chose the curse.
The Torah Portion, Ekev, begins with Moses teaching the children of Israel that if they listen to, observe, and do what God has commanded, they will be God’s partners in the covenant which God made with their ancestors. If they behave according to God’s laws, God will bless the children of Israel with fertility, prosperity, […]
