Vayetzei 5786: Up in the Air
I recently downloaded an app called Flighty. As Ben Cohen described it in the The Wall Street Journal, "Flighty was built by aviation geeks for aviation geeks." It uses all kinds of data to predict whether your flight will be on time or late, and if so by how much. It often beats the airline apps with updates. As an app it's beautifully designed. And it's insightful, showing your most frequent airports, the number of miles you flew last year—and how many times around the Earth (or the Moon) that represents. I'm hooked. While I expected to travel a lot when I took this job nearly six years ago, the first couple of years I didn't go anywhere because of the pandemic. But now the world has...
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...
Steady in the Storm: Celebrating Marc Margolius and Five Years of the Daily Sit
When the COVID lockdown began in March of 2020, IJS hosted the first Daily Sit to provide respite and comfort. Quickly we realized we’d tapped into a powerful yearning: By the end of the first week, more than 350 people were joining each day, finding 30 minutes of peace through meditation, Jewish wisdom, and community. Now, five years later, the Daily Sit is at the heart of IJS’s digital...
Shavuot 5785: Remembering Uncle Arthur
On erev Shavuot 1993, a Volkswagen van pulled up outside our house in Ann Arbor. I was finishing my junior year in high school, and we were preparing for the holiday. An unfamiliar older couple exited van and came to the door. I honestly don't remember the interaction that followed, but the long and short of it is that this was my father's brother Arthur and his wife Kate. They had driven from...
Behar-Bechukotai 5785: Arriving Home
Last Friday our family experienced a mini ingathering of the exiles: Our oldest came home for the summer, our middle one returned from nine months on a gap year program, our youngest didn't have a classmate's b-mitzvah to attend. And so, for the first time since last summer, our whole crew was around the table for Shabbat dinner. However briefly (I left on a business trip Sunday morning), we got...
Emor 5785: Da Pope
Last Thursday and Friday were, hands down, the best days in Chicago social media history. Why? Because, in the words of the ginormous headline in the Sun-Times Friday morning, the papal conclave had elected "Da Pope." Robert Prevost, born on Chicago's south side, became, overnight, Pope Leo XIV--and Chicago, where I live, was here for it. The memes were flying: The Wiener Circle, one of...
Hearing the Divine, in Silence
The holiday of Shavuot, commemorating the revelation of Torah at Mount Sinai, begins this year Sunday night, June 1. It is striking that despite the cacophonous scene of revelation described in the Torah in Exodus 19, there is a stream within Jewish tradition that emphasizes silence as the context for intimate encounter with the Divine. Rabbinic tradition offers an interpretation that at Mount...
First Cohort of 28 Spiritual Directors Graduate from Kol Dodi
In a famous Hasidic saying, the Kotzker Rebbe was once asked: “Where does God dwell?” to which he replied, “Wherever you let God in.” Spiritual direction is the practice of letting God in, of noticing the sacred thread woven throughout everyday life. Spiritual direction is a contemplative practice that invites one to grow in awareness of the sacred dimension present in every moment, no matter...
Torah from the Well: Standing at Sinai Here and Now
Hi friends. I hope this message finds you well. This month, we’re focusing on preparing spiritually for Shavuot—the festival that commemorates our collective receiving of the Torah at Sinai. Many of us were taught to relate to that experience as a one-time event in the distant past. And while this historical moment continues to reverberate through Jewish life, Sinai can sometimes feel far...
Acharei Mot-Kedoshim 5785: Of Conductors and Rabbis
My very favorite TED talk is by the Israeli conductor Itay Talgam. It's called "Lead Like the Great Conductors." In 20 minutes, Talgam shows clips of some of the greats of the twentieth century: Richard Strauss, Carlos Kleiber, Riccardo Muti (who is still alive and well, conducting here in Chicago and around the world), Herbert Von Karajan, and ultimately Leonard Bernstein, who was Talgam's...
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"...
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...
Shemini 5785: Be a Blessing
On Wednesday night I had to run to the drug store. We were out of antihistamine, and, being springtime, the air in Chicago is thick with stuff that makes me sneeze. There's a Walgreens around the corner from our house. As I walked up to the entrance, I saw a man holding a sign in Spanish, but headlined with "Please help." He had three young children with him, the oldest appearing to be no more...
My Talk at the Central Conference of American Rabbis 2025
Last month I was honored to share some words of Torah during a plenary session at the convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in Chicago, alongside two wonderful colleagues: Rabbi Yael Vurgan and Dr. Claire Sufrin. The three of us were asked to spend 15 minutes each sharing a text that has helped us cultivate resilience over these recent difficult months. The text I taught came...
Passover 5785: Purity
The other day I found myself thinking back five years, to the first Pesach we celebrated during the Covid pandemic. I remembered the strange feeling of loneliness and isolation. I remembered how families struggled to figure out whether and how they could do "Zoom seders" (and, frequently, how they would manage to get less tech-savvy relatives into the "room"). I remembered the unusual experience...
Vayikra 5785: I’m Calling to You
A few years ago I received an email from Joe Reimer, a professor emeritus of Jewish education at Brandeis, with a request: to be part of a small working group supported by the Mandel Center for Jewish Education at Brandeis that would focus on the teaching and learning of Jewish spirituality. Certainly because of the people who would be involved, and possibly because of my own predilection to say...
Mindfulness Practice of Radical Welcoming at the Seder
As we gather for the Seder, this meditation invites us to open our hearts—welcoming those present and absent, every part of ourselves, and the world’s joys and struggles. May we enter Pesach with deep presence, warmth, and gratitude, ready for renewal.
The Tikkun of Speech in Nissan
Each month offers an opportunity for a tikkun ("repair"), a rectification of some aspect of our being. The month of Nissan, this season of spring awakening and liberation, invites us into the tikkun of speech. Pesach literally means "mouth speaks," and it is known that how we utilize our voices, words, songs, and speech is key to our redemption from mitzrayim, from the narrow places of our...
Pekudei 5785: My Career as a Shoplifter
I'll begin with a confession: I am a shoplifter. Well, I was a shoplifter. As a little kid. My Mom and I were shopping at the grocery store. I saw a greeting card I really liked (I remember it being blue) and I wanted to buy it. For whatever reason, my Mom said no. I surreptitiously took it anyway and hid it inside my shirt. My Mom discovered it when we got home. After a serious talking-to about...
Vayakhel 5785: Reach Out and Touch Someone
I've written here previously about my mother's journey with Alzheimer's disease, which officially began seven years ago but which has likely been going on longer than that. For me, the first visible sign was when she had a hard time reading a children's book to our youngest son, who was then 3 or 4 years old. Since then, the path has taken her through, among other things, a gradual reduction in...