Toldot 5786: Hearing Voices
Before my recent weeklong retreat, I was worried about a few things. As I wrote recently, being off the grid for that long is a significant absence for all involved, a rehearsal of death. So I was worried about the effect that would have on my family. And I was a little worried about being away from work for a week. But those were ultimately not major sources of concern. What had me really worried was my mother. As I have shared in this space before, my Mom has Alzheimer's, and it is now at a more advanced stage. She's still her cheerful self, but her world is pretty small and focused at this point. The conversations, like her day to day activities, don't take her very far. My worry came...
Chayei Sarah 5786: The Heart Wants To Be Open
A pretty cool moment occurred the other day while I was walking the dog. It was a sunny but cold day and I was listening to a talk by Gil Fronsdal about Metta practice (Pali for lovingkindess, or perhaps what we would call Hesed). All fairly normal—for me, at any rate. Early on in the talk, Gil uttered a casual line that, probably without intending it, lit me up. He observed that it generally just feels better when our hearts are open. They don't naturally want to be constricted. As I said, this was a casual line in a 45-minute talk. But it literally stopped me in my tracks. Why? Because it took me back to a podcast interview I did with Rabbi Shai Held a few months ago. The topic of that...
‘Ayin Tovah (Focusing on the Good): Gateway to Gratitude and Resilience
Note: The Jewish spiritual tradition uses the term ‘ayin tovah (lit. “a good or favorable eye”) to describe a specific way of focusing our attention on the good. This language may feel inaccessible to readers who are blind or visually impaired. If you are such an individual, we invite you to adapt this teaching to your own experience in a manner that feels more accessible.It’s easy these days to...
Vayera 5786: Extended Yom Kippur
Last Shabbat fell on the tenth day of the Hebrew month of Marcheshvan, exactly a month after the tenth of Tishrei—which is better known as Yom Kippur. And while it was entirely a coincidence that last Shabbat was the culmination of a weeklong silent retreat I attended at the Insight Retreat Center in Santa Cruz, CA, the voice of Albert Einstein is chuckling inside my head, saying, "Coincidence...
Lekh Lekha 5786: Crossover Episode
By the time you read this, I'll be several days into a weeklong silent meditation retreat. Full disclosure: This isn't a Jewish retreat. It's at the Insight Meditation Center in the mountains above Santa Cruz, California, and it's being led by Gil Fronsdal, a teacher I've come to deeply appreciate and learn from. That may come as a bit of a surprise. Why is the head of the Institute for Jewish...
Book Talk with Jane Eisner
We are grateful to Jane Eisner for sharing her insights with us. Please enjoy the conversation recording.Jane Eisner has spent her career breaking barriers in journalism. The first woman to edit Wesleyan University’s student paper, she went on to hold senior roles at the Philadelphia Inquirer for 25 years before becoming the first female editor-in-chief of the Forward, where she expanded...
Noach 5786: One for All
One morning this week, on a visit to New York, I was walking down Broadway on Manhattan's Upper West Side, en route to a fundraising meeting. A significant part of my job involves offering wealthy people the opportunity to support our work at IJS, and in this case I was headed to the apartment of one such person—who, I hasten to add, is not only a wonderful supporter, but also, unsurprisingly, a...
Entering into the Ark of Prayer
The Hebrew month of Cheshvan brings a welcome relief from the spiritual highs of Tishrei— we get to take a break from large communal gatherings and integrate all that transpired for us during the high holidays. With more space for solitude and intimate time at home, we have a chance to bring renewed energy to the inner work of spiritual practice and prayer. In ancient Israel, Cheshvan is when...
Send Out the Raven Ahead of the Dove
I’m imagining us in Noah’s ark.As the Hebrew month of Cheshvan begins and a new cycle of Torah reading is initiated, we read Parshat Noah. We encounter an ark; Noah, his family and a few of every living species; and a flood of utter destruction that wipes out all life on earth. For the past two years, I have been holding the narrative of Noah’s ark close to me as a source of spiritual inquiry...
Bereshit 5786: Tearing Up
Perhaps, like me, you shed tears this week. My first tears came as I watched video of the living Israeli hostages reunited with their families. I wept along with Einav Zangauker, one of the most outspoken advocates for the hostages, as she repeatedly cried out, "Chaim sheli!" "My life!" while embracing her son Matan. I cried as the father of Yosef-Chaim Ohana finished saying his prayers and...
Shabbat Sukkot 5786: Who Knows?
When I ask how the day is going, my friend Marvin, who is older and much wiser than me, often likes to say, "Good—so far." By which he means something like: The day isn't over yet, and while thankfully things have been good so far this day, who knows what might come next. In the world of Torah, we generally associate the question "Who knows?" with Mordechai, who uses those very words to...
Haazinu 5786: Building our Sukkah
The emotional summit of my spiritual year comes at the end of Yom Kippur. The liturgy for that moment is utterly unique, something we do at no other time of the year: Responsively crying out the Shema and then, seven times, "Adonai hu haelohim," "YHVH is God." Then, when we've reached the peak, the shofar sounds for a final time and we break out into an ecstatic dance as we sing, "L'shanah...
My Fiftieth High Holidays: A Personal Jubilee (Shabbat Shuva 5786)
As I was walking to shul on Rosh Hashanah morning, I did some personal accounting ('tis the season and all). My first "High Holiday gig" was blowing shofar in our minyan in Ann Arbor around age 14. The first time I led Rosh Hashanah Musaf was at the Hebrew Home for the Aged in New Haven in the fall of 1999, and I've continued doing that in various places nearly every year since. But then it...
Rosh Hashanah 5785: Everybody’s Talkin’ at Me
Reading my friend Jane Eisner's wonderful new biography of Carole King, I learned about the Brill Building, which sits at 49th and Broadway in Manhattan and, in the 1960s, was the center of the American pop music world. There was King herself, of course, but reading through the list of songwriters and bands that centered around the building one gets the sense of just how extraordinary a place it...
Rebecca Schisler Receives 2025 Pomegranate Prize
[New York, NY, September 17, 2025] - Rebecca Schisler, a core faculty member at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality (IJS), received the prestigious Pomegranate Prize given by the Covenant Foundation. She is one of just 10 Jewish educators in the U.S. to receive the 2025 honor and the second IJS faculty member to have earned the coveted designation. The organization presented the annual awards...
Accepting the End, In Order to Begin Anew: Practice for the Days of Awe
One of the central (and paradoxical) themes of the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe, is that accepting our mortality opens the gate to personal transformation. The extent to which we make peace with the end of our lives helps us begin to live more fully today. Moses models this kind of radical acceptance as we move towards the end of the annual Torah reading cycle. The Sages imagined Moses...
Ki Tavo 5785: Perceiving Blessings Clearly
Many years ago when I was a young rabbi working at Northwestern University Hillel, I went to meet Patti Ray at her home. Patti was the longtime director of Hillel at Loyola University, one of our neighboring campuses in the Chicago area. After this long time, I don’t really remember why I went to her house, but that visit has had a lasting impact—because the day that I came, Patti was having her...
Ki Tetzei 5785: Two Funerals and a Story
On Monday I had the rare opportunity to attend two funerals of women who died well into their 90s. They happened to know each other, they were both matriarchs of families with whom I've enjoyed long friendships, and they even shared the same first name (though spelled differently: Rheta Shapiro and Rita Mendelsohn). It's not every day such a thing occurs. I have always found funerals in Elul to...
Shoftim 5785: First National Trust
One of the most delightful parts of being a parent has been studying parts of the Mishnah with each of my children. With my older kids, who are now both in college, it has been a little while. But my youngest is still at home, and our synagogue recently began a new collective project to study two mishnayot (individual teachings) per day, with the goal of completing the entire Mishnah in five...
Re’eh 5785: Inch by Inch, Row by Row
Ever since we moved into our home 12 years ago, we have faced a challenge whenever there's a heavy rain: our backyard turns into a small pond. Thankfully the water has not posed an issue for our basement (though the presence of three sump pumps in the house tells me that it probably did for the previous owners). Mostly it has just been a wet inconvenience. Depending on the amount of rainfall, it...
