I’ll just put it out there: I love “Lost”. It helps complete my Tuesdays, watching how Hugo, Jack, Kate and everyone else on the Island figure out what their purpose in life is. In the last episode, “Lost” gematria became a major theme. For those of you who seek direction let me explain. In the […]

Thinking about God today. I suppose it’s appropriate – it is Shabbat. Anyway, I just received a book by Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Ineffable Name of God: Man. It’s a collection of poems that this greatest of 20th century Jewish thinkers (though Buber is up there, too), published when he was slightly older then my […]

One of the hardest things I do is try to figure out what to teach my students, whether they are supremely unmotivated 8th graders or the teaching staff at the religious school I direct or my daughters. I find myself getting caught up in what I want them to learn, what I want them to […]

I just read a depressing column in last week’s Forward ( http://forward.com/articles/120123/). It was written by Rabbi Irving Greenberg and it was entitled “There is No Alternative to Day Schools”. In the piece Rabbi Greenberg spelled out his case for massive funding for Day School education, declaring that that there is no other alternative in […]

I’m running out of candy. And they keep ringing my doorbell. So I’m sitting here, wearing my “Scream” face (you know – the demon with the BIG mouth from the movie) and my“Cat In The Hat” hat on my head, waiting for the inevitable. I really wasn’t planning on blogging about Halloween. I mean I […]

A few weeks ago a story broke in our local paper about a Jewish girl who is being privately trained for her Bat Mitzvah. The happy event will take place on a cruise ship – hence we are speaking of a “boat-mitzvah”. The family has not been affiliated with any synagogue. Letters to the Editor […]

San Francisco – an incredible city. I just returned from what I thought would be a 5 day respite from my “real world”. I explored, what was for me, a new corner of the globe. The food, the climate, and the tourist attractions – all were unforgettable. And so was the real world I crashed […]

My kid, the youngest, Keren, is going to college tomorrow. I’ve spent the day helping her pack, buying last minute electronics (how can she NOT have a good speaker system hooked up to her MacBook?) and printer cartridges. I’m doing what I can to get her ready for the next chapter. And I wonder – […]

At the beach I was flummoxed by technology. Once upon a time we’d go the shore, find a parking spot and deposit whatever loose change we had into the parking meter. There has been a revolution, though. The old fashioned parking meter was replaced by a computerized one, which now handles the entire lot. We […]

Twitter has been called overrated, overblown, narcissistic and a waste of time. I never bought into that. I knew that there was potential there. I felt that meaning and relevance could be found despite the plethora of celebrity tweets. Last week my patience was rewarded. It began with a question about the recently released paper […]