The Speed of Trust (Vayikra 5786)
Thirty years ago, in my junior year of college, I fulfilled a childhood dream: not only to conduct an orchestra one time, but to be the orchestra's regular conductor. It wasn't the Chicago Symphony or the New York Philharmonic, of course—it was a student ensemble, the Berkeley College Orchestra (Berkeley is one of the residential colleges at Yale). At the time, Yale boasted more than half a dozen such student-led orchestras, which was one of the major reasons I wanted to go there. And while many of those other ensembles have faded away, I'm delighted that that BCO is celebrating its 50th anniversary this spring. The summer before that year, I spent a lot of time ruminating about how I...
Making Plans (Vayakhel-Pikudei 5786)
“It’s hard to make plans these days.” In the years preceding her Alzheimer’s diagnosis (perhaps in a sign of things to come) I remember my mother saying these words regularly. I’m sure there was truth to it: the effects of aging on the body made it harder to know how she or my father would feel about traveling, or even just going someplace, when the time came. It was harder to make plans. I’ve been hearing my mother saying these words in my mind recently as we’ve begun a new strategic planning effort at IJS—because it does, indeed, feel hard to make plans these days. We had a quarterly board meeting this week and I thought about so many big things that have changed in the world just since...
Limitless (Ki Tissa 5786)
I can remember a period of my life when the melancholy of a waning Shabbat afternoon really hit me hard. This was in my early twenties. I was single, just back from a year studying in yeshiva in Israel, and most often spending Shabbat with friends on the Upper West Side (in a desire to end my singlehood and find a partner). As the sun would sink into the western sky and the shadows of those...
Book Talk with Rabbi Angela Buchdahl
We are grateful to Rabbi Angela Buchdahl for speaking to us about her new book, Heart of a Stranger. Please enjoy the conversation recording below.Rabbi Angela Buchdahl is a pioneering Reform rabbi and cantor and one of the most influential Jewish leaders in America today. She became the first Asian American to be ordained as both a cantor and a rabbi in North America when she was invested as a...
Role Playing (Tetzaveh 5786)
Three of my happiest moments as a parent have come at our local men's clothing store, as I have taken each of my sons to find a suit for his bar mitzvah. For starters, the trip strikes a deep chord of familiarity, as I remember shopping for a suit or a sport coat with my own father at the long since closed Ann Arbor Clothing. That's a warm memory. For another, it has generally marked a...
Help us reach the next generation
Help us pass Jewish spirituality to the next generation.Your gift matched for Passover! Generous donors have offered to MATCH every donation between now and Passover to help pass Jewish mindfulness on to the next generation. Between now and seder night, every dollar you give to IJS will be DOUBLED to sustain the next generation - l’dor vador. You’ll receiveGuided Mindfulness for Your Sederas a...
Making Space (Terumah 5786)
Conventional wisdom tells us you shouldn't make too many big life changes at once. Two weeks after I finished rabbinical school in the summer of 2005, Natalie and I welcomed our second child. And two weeks later we moved halfway across the country so I could start a new job. We bought our first home, we bought a new car. All to say that we made a lot of big life changes all at once. Sometimes,...
Common Decency Comes Before Religious Law (Mishpatim 5786)
This week I remembered an event from many years ago when I was a young Hillel rabbi. I was in a session at the annual Hillel staff conference led by Rabbi Jim Diamond z"l, the sagely longtime Hillel director at Princeton. Jim was sharing some of his war stories, one of which went like this: One year, the president of the student body turned out to be Jewish. Jim didn't know this student, but he...
Nahafokh Hu: The Upside-Down Wisdom We Need Right Now
There is a phrase at the heart of the Purim story: nahafokh hu, “it was turned upside down.” The very moment when destruction seemed certain became the moment of redemption. Everything reversed, inside became outside, and the hidden became revealed. These days, we don’t have to stretch our imaginations far to feel the resonance of this theme — we can simply turn on the news. In our country and...
Practicing Joy in Terrible Times
Mi-shenichnas Adar, marbim b’simchah. When the month of Adar begins, one increases in joy.Babylonian Talmud Ta’anit 29a Mitzvah g'dolah l'hiyot b'simchah tamid. It is a great mitzvah to be joyful, always.Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlov, Likutei Moharan II: 24 How do we nurture simchah through spiritual practice – especially in such challenging times, when joy seems hard, maybe even unjust, to access?...
A Time to Act (Yitro 5786)
It has always been easy for me to know how old the United States is. I was a “Bicentennial Baby,” born in 1976. Add 200 to my age, and you get the age of the country. With God’s help, I’ll turn 50 in May, and my country, in turn, will be 250 in July. I don’t know about you, but to me it doesn’t feel like a very happy birthday year for the nation. Two and a half centuries ago, Thomas Jefferson...
Walking Through the Waters (Beshallach 5786)
This week I'm thinking about three walks. I'll talk about them in reverse chronological order. The First WalkOn Tuesday I was walking the dog and listening to a talk by Gil Fronsdal, which he had given two days earlier. Gil prefaced it by saying that it would be a challenging talk, and it was clear he was going to address questions of citizenship and activism in the wake of the killing of Alex...
IJS is here for you
When emotions are running close to the surface, IJS is here for you. Rabbi Josh Feigelson shares his reflections below.
Our Fine Furry Friends (Bo 5786)
I don't know about you, but for me it's been a stressful time of late. Not at work so much, but in life. There have been the normal stresses that come with being the "sandwich generation"—parenting kids, caring for aging parents. It's been oppressively cold in Chicago, which means spending less time outside, and thus feeling more cooped up. And then there's witnessing what's happening in my...
New Year of the Trees
by Laura Hegfield (Educators Cohort and JMMTT graduate)Tu Bishvat, the Jewish "New Year of the Trees," is the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat -- which this year begins the evening of Sunday, February 1 and continues throughout the day on Monday, February 2. On or around that date, we invite you to engage in a beautiful tree-based contemplative practice led by Laura Hegfield, a graduate of...
Seder Tu BiShvat: A Seder for the Festival of the Trees
by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat (CLP6) and Rabbi Jeffrey Goldwasser (R2)[T]he 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat, the full moon of the month, is the New Year of the Trees; we pause to mark the passage of time measured in their rings. The Talmud established this as the New Year’s Day for all trees, so that we could observe the commandment “When you enter the land and plant any tree for food...three...
Book Talk with Sarah Hurwitz
We are grateful to Sarah Hurwitz for speaking to us about her new book, As a Jew. Please enjoy the conversation recording below. We have two versions of the recording available, with and without ASL interpretation, thanks to Lisa Pershan.For nearly 15 years, Sarah Hurwitz built a career finding just the right words. She served as a White House speechwriter from 2009 to 2017, first as a senior...
The Price of Chicken (Vaera 5786)
There's a classic Yogi Berra-style Jewish joke that goes something like this: A woman walks into her local butcher shop and sees a sign for chicken at $1.50 a pound. (Note: You can tell just how old this joke is by the prices mentioned here.) She looks at the butcher indignantly and says, "A dollar-fifty? The butcher across the street is selling chicken for only 30 cents a pound!" The butcher...
Homes of our Heroes (Shemot 5786)
In the last few months, my wife Natalie has launched a new business called The Story Archivist. (This is not meant as a promotional email, I promise--you get plenty of those from me for IJS courses already!) Natalie is a journalist by training, a published author by experience (five young adult novels), and an educator by career. Her work today brings that all together by helping families...
Lighting the Way Forward
Earlier this week we held a beautiful celebration of IJS's first 25 years. Below is a recording of Rabbi Josh Feigelson's speech from the event.
