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For the last couple of years, it has felt at times that our youngest child, who turns 14 in a few weeks, has needed his own social secretary. Between school and camp, he has attended a veritable parade of coming-of-age celebrations (bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs, b-mitzvahs—or as the van of a local non-kosher caterer that nevertheless does a lot of Jewish events puts it a little ironically, “mitzvahs”). There have been stretches of many weeks where he has spent Shabbat at someone else’s home, only to go that evening to a party for another friend in a different community. It’s frankly quite a wonderful problem to have. These affairs have been a real study in contrast and diversity. Some are...

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...

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"...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Our family dog, Phoebe, is a 50ish pound Plott Hound (the official state dog of North Carolina, it turns out). Plotts are hunting dogs, and Phoebe certainly likes to be active. She requires at least two long walks a day, and often more. And she will frankly take as much stimulation as we can offer. Sometimes I play a game with Phoebe: I dangle a rope in front of her, just out of her reach. She...

While social media is, generally speaking, a wasteland of toxic drek, there are still some moments when its original hopeful potential glimmers beneath the surface. One such moment occurred for me in recent weeks, as I began to engage with an old acquaintance from my youth whose politics are pretty different from mine. He had posted something about the hypocrisy of political leaders. I couldn't...

Regular readers will know that the Boy Scouts were a big part of life in my family growing up. My grandfather became an Eagle Scout in 1924. My father, two older brothers and I were all Eagle Scouts too. It was through Scouting that I learned formative lessons about life and leadership, camping and hiking, citizenship and first aid. But more than anything, I think Scouting helped instill in me a...

It was cold on Presidents Day, and many of our friends had gone to warmer places for the long weekend. So my son Toby and I wound up at the movies. We saw "Mufasa," which tells the backstory to "The Lion King:" how the orphaned Mufasa (this is a Disney movie after all—gotta have your orphan story) is adopted by a new family and emerges into a great leader. Love, betrayal, all the the usual...

The beginning of this month marked five years since I began working at IJS. Half a decade later, I am grateful that I continue to wake up every day and get to do this amazing work with these amazing colleagues—including our professionals, our volunteer leaders, and the thousands of people who participate in our community in one way or another. That includes you, as a reader of these reflections....