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While many might opine reasons why Judaism continues to flourish after 4,000 years, I’d like to focus on two: life and portability. All that we do, all that God expects of us, is focused on life. We are encouraged to live our lives to the fullest, embracing joy and celebration of family, Shabbat and holidays, and building community. God wants us to develop to be the best possible versions of ourselves, and in...Read more...

While it may seem less reassuring, our ancestors over the millennia regularly experienced times when all they had was hope. It could be easy to reflect upon our history as a people and only mention tragedies, which is what Tisha B’av is about. But that is not what Judaism is about. We are about joy, experiencing it personally and sharing it with others. Just as news reports solely concentrate on negatives to the...Read more...

Joy. Pride. Enthusiasm. Electricity. Uplift. Without opening my thesaurus, these are just some of the emotions I took away from Monday evening’s Maccabi Games Opening Event. There could certainly be many more words to offer, but I hope that these opening words convey a sense of the evening. Held in the Pete, aka the Petersen Events Center on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh, team after team representing...Read more...

We have entered what we call “the three weeks” in the Jewish calendar. It begins with the 17th day of Tammuz and concludes with Tisha B’av. On the 17th of Tammuz in the year 70CE, the Roman army breached the walls of Jerusalem, leading to the destruction of the Second Holy Temple on Tisha B’av. The First Holy Temple was also destroyed on Tisha B’av in 586BCE by the Babylonia Army, with the siege of...Read more...

The Book of Numbers, which we are currently reading, is a very messy book.  Despite the saving grace of God, the Israelites are unable to appreciate freedom, and regularly complain to Moses about the food, the water and the continuous wandering, questioning why they were brought to this wilderness to die, that life was better being a slave in Egypt. While God doesn’t exactly say so, God must be thinking:...Read more...