Tazria-Metzora 5785: Eye of the Beholder
In the weeks leading up to my physical this week, I was a little nervous. I had noticed a bit of pain in a sensitive area on my skin that's not easy to see, and I couldn't figure out what was causing it. There was nothing debilitating or life-threatening, but it was on my list of things to talk about with the physician. But then I made what those of us who grew up watching "The Princess Bride" might call "one of the classic blunders:" I googled it. I don't need to tell you what happened next. I found out all the possible things that could be bothering me. Dr. Internet told me I could have various types of rashes, infections, cancers. My breath became shorter, my heart started racing. You...
Josh in Conversation with Rabbi Shira Stutman
We are grateful to Rabbi Shira Stutman for sharing her insights with us. Please enjoy the conversation recording.Rabbi Shira Stutman is a nationally known faith-based leader and change maker with more than twenty years of experience motivating and inspiring groups large and small. She is the senior rabbi of the Aspen Jewish Congregation and co-host of the top-ranked PRX podcast Chutzpod! in which she provides Jewish answers to life’s contemporary questions and helps listeners build lives of meaning. She also teaches Torah and speaks nationally on topics that include growing welcoming Jewish spiritual communities; building the connective tissues between different types of people; and the...
Josh in Conversation with Andrés Spokoiny
We are grateful to Andrés Spokoiny for sharing his insights with us. Please enjoy the conversation recording.Andrés Spokoiny, CEO of the Jewish Funders Network, is a longtime Jewish communal leader with a history of leading successful organizational transformations. He served as the CEO of Federation CJA in Montreal and, prior to that, for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Community (JDC)...
Bo 5785: The Age of Unsurance
"Insurance is one of finance’s great gifts to mankind. Through the statistical magic of risk pooling, an individual can obtain peace of mind and protection against devastating loss." A perhaps unexpected opening sentence to a Shabbat reflection from yours truly. But the article it comes from, by Wall Street Journal writer Greg Ip, really grabbed my attention. I had always kind of assumed that,...
What a Week: Vaera 5785
What an intense week it has been. Yes, yes: I'll get to the new administration in a bit. But there was much more to this week too. For me, the week began with clearing out my mother's apartment and visiting her frequently, as we moved her into memory care. Not a simple thing, of course. It's definitely the right move for this moment in her life, and she is adjusting to it with her customary...
A Spiritual Ladder (Shemot 5785)
When I was a kid, in order to become an Eagle Scout you needed to earn 21 merit badges. Of those, some were required and some were elective. I remember my electives included things like ice skating and music (which were, conveniently, things I did anyway outside of Scouting). The required merit badges were things like First Aid (no surprise), Citizenship in the Community, Swimming and...
Tevet: Settling Amidst the Storm
While Kislev brought us into the darkest time of year and the holiday of Hanukkah, Tevet brings us out of Hanukkah, and moves us again towards longer, lighter days. The month of Tevet was originally named while the Jewish people were living in exile in Babylonia. “Tevet,” meaning “sinking” or “immersing,”¹, perhaps references the muddy swamp-like conditions that arose from heavy rains during the...
A Response to David Brooks (Hannukah 5785)
Dear friends, I heard from many people this week about The New York Times columnist David Brooks's essay, "The Shock of Faith." I won't speak for him (he does that for himself in 2,000 words). Nor do I really want to have a conversation about whether Brooks, who talks about his Jewish life, is really a Christian at this point (he deals with that a bit in the essay). Instead, I want to respond to...
Bring Them Home Now (Vayeshev 5785)
On Tuesday morning this week, I stood amidst the ruined homes of young members of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, one of the kibbutzim overrun and decimated by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. These small apartments had provided a way for the kibbutz to help young people get their start in adult life. Their location, closest to the western fence of the kibbutz, made them the first line of attack....
Jewish Humor and Jewish Power (Vayishlach 5785)
Josh in Conversation with Joshua Leifer
We are grateful to Joshua Leifer for sharing his insights with us. Please enjoy the conversation recording.Joshua Leifer is a journalist, editor, and translator. His essays and reporting have appeared widely in international publications, including The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Haaretz, The Nation, and elsewhere. A member of the...
At Home in the Darkness
At this time of year, where I live in Toronto, the trees have shed almost all of their leaves and their branches stand bare against the grey sky. Day by day, the hours of sunlight shorten while darkness holds on longer to the mornings and rolls in earlier and earlier in the evenings. Overhead, skeins of Canada geese honk their way south, and I almost take their leaving personally, abandoning me...
Extracting the Hidden Light
As we enter the darkest season of the year, Jewish tradition teaches of the or haganuz, a hidden light revealed through presence and righteous acts. Legend says 36 hidden righteous ones—the Lamed Vavnikim—sustain the world. This Hanukkah, as we light 36 candles, we’re called to embody their spirit, revealing the light within ourselves and the world.
A Quiet Mind (Chayei Sarah 5785)
Many years ago, when my oldest son (now 21) was little, he asked for me to read him stories from a children's bible on our shelf. It had belonged to my wife as a kid, and I was excited that Jonah wanted to hear these stories. But of course it got complicated, because these stories are not, in fact, children's stories for the most part. They talk about some pretty adult topics. I particularly...
Josh in Conversation with Rabbi Adina Allen
We are grateful to Rabbi Adina Allen for sharing her insights with us. Please enjoy the conversation recording.Rabbi Adina Allen is a spiritual leader, author, and educator who grew up in an art studio where she learned firsthand the power of creativity for connecting to self and to the Sacred. She is cofounder and creative director of Jewish Studio Project (JSP), an organization that is seeding...
Responding to the Anxiety of Now: Vayera 5785
I was riding in a Lyft at 4:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, en route to LAX to make a flight home in time for my son's 12th birthday party. My driver, a middle-aged African-American woman, asked me where I was headed. "Chicago." "Chicago?! Take me with you! That's where I'm from." "Oh, where in Chicago did you grow up?" She proceeded to name what felt like 25 different neighborhoods: First she...
A Post-Election Practice: Cultivating Our Loving Intention
We live in a world that demands results. (And those results must come quickly enough to match our impatience). We live in a world that keeps score. (How are we doing?) We live in a world that is always comparing. (Am I better or worse, smarter, more righteous?) We live in a world that measures success by how much money we make or how many people like us. I want to suggest another way to live....
Finding God in the Depths
In times of darkness and struggle, what if the deepest divine connection is found not in the absence of hardship, but in the raw, authentic moments of longing and love shared with others? This teaching from Rebecca Schisler is an invitation to discover that the true power of the divine is always present—one breath, one moment, one prayer away—ready to be felt even in the most challenging of...
Finding a haven in a turbulent world: Lekh-Lekha 5785
Even though I went to bed early on Tuesday, before the election outcome was clear, I didn’t get much sleep. Try as I might — sleep meditations, visualizations, every trick I know—I couldn't get my mind to stop spinning: so much uncertainty, so much at stake for so many of us. I just couldn’t settle down, and I tossed and turned all night. I know many of you felt that way too. When I finally got...
Confronting Chaos with Silence: Noach 5785
Here’s a historical tidbit I love to recite: Benjamin Franklin was born in 1706. Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, the founder of Hasidism better known as the Ba’al Shem Tov, was born eight years earlier, in 1698. Which is to say, Franklin and the Besht were contemporaries. I often mention this factoid when I teach Hasidic texts because I think that, while they emerged in different political and...