In God We Trust (Devarim 5786)
Like me, one of my childhood rabbis, Rob Dobrusin, is a baseball fan. In addition to teaching me Torah as a young person, he also taught me to appreciate the writing of Bart Giamatti, the late Commissioner of the MLB. So the other day, when he posted this meme about the Pittsburgh Pirates on Facebook, I was, like him, rather amazed: The Pirates are, as my kids might say, notoriously “mid” as a team. Despite the fact that they have boasted some exceptional talent over the years—pictured here is Paul Skenes, arguably the best pitcher in the National League for the last couple of seasons—they have made just seven World Series appearances since 1909, the last one coming nearly half a century...
At Home Everywhere? (Matot-Masei 5786)
A few months ago, after I shared that I would be devoting more of these reflections to the topic of home and at-homeness, a package arrived in the mail. I opened it to discover a book I hadn’t ordered, The Longing for Home (University of Notre Dame Press, 1996). Included was a note from one of the contributors, Werner Gundersheimer, a retired academic and former director of the Folger Shakespeare Library. Dr. Gundersheimer, it turns out, is a regular reader, and upon reading of my project he thought of this volume. It has turned out to be quite a wonderful and unexpected gift, full of (mostly) accessible academic essays on a range of aspects of home. Gundersheimer’s own contribution is a...
Summertime Meditation: Suspending Disbelief
We invite you to unwind with a simple, powerful practice. Step outside for a summertime meditation led by Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell.
At the Crossroads, on Tisha B’Av: Mindfulness, Suffering, & Redemption
As we move in the Jewish year towards Tisha b’Av, the nadir of the Jewish year, how shall we confront the reality of pain and suffering spiritually? Given the cataclysms of our world, where is there any space to allow for the real possibility of redemption or repentance? Where is there room for empathic, mindful practice in a harsh world that seems so utterly distant from it all? Commenting...
Okay (Pinchas 5786)
When my youngest child was four years old, our local movie theater had a special showing of the original Lion King movie (not to be confused with the star-studded remake from a few years ago). It started at 7 pm, so I knew we’d be pushing the limits of his bedtime, but this seemed like an important special opportunity, so off we went. The movie was great. As we pulled out of the parking lot, I...
Book Talk with Jeremy David Engels
Thank you Jeremy David Engels for joining Rabbi Josh Feigelson for this insightful conversation about his book: On Mindful Democracy: A Declaration of Interdependence to Mend a Fractured World. Please enjoy the recording below.Jeremy David Engels is the author of six books, including On Mindful Democracy: A Declaration of Interdependence to Mend a Fractured World (Parallax, 2026), as well as a...
Safe at Home (Huqat-Balak 5786)
There is a serious debate among knowledgeable people about a very important question: What is the best baseball movie of all time? In my experience the choices often come down to Field of Dreams (starring Kevin Costner and featuring an immortal monologue by James Earl Jones that is guaranteed to bring the hardest-edged person to tears) and Bull Durham (also starring Kevin Costner—I know, I...
The Book and the Sword (Huqat 5786)
The other night I had dinner with a dear old friend and colleague. After catching up about our families and personal lives, the conversation moved, inevitably, to the state of the Jewish people. My friend, an astute observer of history, offered that our generation experienced a unique set of circumstances in the life of the Jews: We were born in America the wake of World War II. Having...
Kissing Contest (Korach 5786)
One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from a high school girlfriend. Like many hormone-filled teenagers (which is to say, teenagers), I was trying to figure out in my mind how she and I might eventually kiss. And, like many teenagers, I was having an awkward go of it. I had probably learned too many unrealistic lessons from watching fake romance in the movies. I was waiting for...
Practice for Tammuz: How to Bear a Broken Heart
As we reach the end of the month of Sivan, which includes Shavuot and revelation at Sinai, we prepare to enter the month of Tammuz and the period of the Jewish calendar known as the "Three Weeks." This stretch begins on the 17th of Tammuz, commemorating the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem by the Romans, and culminates on Tisha B’Av (the Ninth of the month of Av), marking the destruction of...
Shalom Meditation: Welcoming Peace Into Your Body, Heart, and Mind
Join Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg for this meditation on shalom/peace. Shalom is vast and open, receptive, spacious, it does not grab; it holds everything.Transcript of meditation: Every day is a good day to pray for Shalom. Our most important prayers are sealed with the prayer for Shalom. Birkat Hamazon. After each meal. The Amidah recited three times a day. The priestly blessing. May peace be...
Full House (Shelach 5786)
The Feigelson-Blitt house is a bit of a physical mess right now. Our eldest graduated from college and brought all his stuff home. Our middle child finished his first year of college and brought a lot of his stuff home. And both of them have had a lot of laundry to do. The effulgence of stuff—sheets, blankets, towels, winter coats, phone charging cables, electronic devices, assorted college...
Letting It Out (Beha’alotcha 5786)
My wife Natalie is a woman of many talents, and she always has a craft project of one variety or another that she’s working on. At one point she made beautiful cloth banners with Hebrew letters that still adorn our home at Jewish holidays. For the last few years, she’s been working on a special kind of embroidery in which she overlays black and white photos with splotches of color. About a...
Being a Blessing (Naso 5786)
While the Priestly Blessing is a central ritual at my family’s Shabbat table, that hasn’t always been the case. For whatever reason, it wasn’t part of my parents’ repertoire when I was growing up. That changed when, at age 12, I attended the bat mitzvah of a family friend and saw her parents place their hands on her head and recite the words. I told my folks, “I’d like us to do that.” Soon...
Book Talk with Rabbi Caryn Aviv
We are grateful to Rabbi Caryn Aviv for speaking to us about her new book, Unlearning Jewish Anxiety: How to Live with More Joy and Less Suffering. Please enjoy the conversation recording below.Rabbi Caryn Aviv (she/her/hers) serves as Rabbinic and Program Director at Judaism Your Way, as well as Director of Studies at ALEPH. Caryn loves to create and facilitate transformative Jewish experiences...
Roots & Shoots (Bamidbar 5786)
Like many other people, the Covid pandemic brought my extended family a bit closer. Like many Jewish families, that happened as a result of “Zoom kiddush,” a Friday afternoon gathering of first cousins, aunts and uncles, that included some catching up, some reminiscing, and a performance of a few Shabbat rituals. Six years later, our family’s Zoom kiddush is still going. Every Friday afternoon I...
Beyond Burnout: What Clergy Need to Lead and Last
On Tuesday, May 14, Rabbis Benjamin Ross, Josh Feigelson, Jenny Solomon, and Cantor Julia Cadrain, held a candid and timely conversation about the burnout crisis. Josh and Benjamin's recent joint report, Holy Work, Human Limits, Communal Potential, captures the gravity of this issue, and together they shared the findings and open a dialogue about where we go from here.
The Concept of “Ani” and the Separating Partition
Session Opening and Thematic Context Rabbi Nancy Flam: Let’s just rest in ourselves for a minute or two. Allow everything else to just be what it is. And just just I invite you to rest in yourself. Sitting for a minute or two. So, we're in a progression in our meditation instructions and practice over this retreat preparing ourselves to experience what revelation might be. So in a way the...
Torah from the Mountain, Torah from the Well: Attuning to the Kol Demamah Dakah (The Subtle, Silent Murmur)
In this video teaching, we begin by contrasting the earth-shaking revelation at Sinai in Exodus 19 and 20 with the subtle, silent murmur of I Kings 19. This distinction serves as a map for our meditation, guiding us past the noise of the ego toward a sanctuary of inner quietude. Here, we connect with the source of divine wisdom to receive a fresh transmission of inner Torah—revealing that the...
A Fateful Talk With a Doctor: Practicing Sh’mirat haDibbur, Mindful Speech
We are heading into the seventh and final week of the Omer period, associated with the sephirah (Divine emanation) of Malkut (Sovereignty), which in Jewish mystical tradition is connected with holy speech. The focus of our practice this week is sh'mirat hadibbur, mindful speech. How might we channel all the middot, the sacred traits we have cultivated over the Omer period, so they inform how we...