No, I’m not making a Game of Thrones reference, unless I’m skiing like there’s a hot Targaryen at the bottom of the ski hill. I’ve been a telemark skier for about 23 years. I’ve done alpine and I’m fine with it, and I’m mildly curious about splitboarding, but telemarking has become special to me. I
This has for us been the most engaged week of Chanukah in a long time. We had a friend’s family over for the second night, we went to Chabad’s lighting and party in downtown Bangor, we had 11 friends over last night, and after the Chanukah party at our shul on Sunday, we’re enjoying the
I received the death notice about Morris Merlin today from our synagogue, and my heart is broken. I couldn’t take Morris on social media. He was too much. He hated Donald Trump and the people that voted for them. He hated libertarianism. He hated that I ran as a Republican for State House. I didn’t
“Let’s do havdalah tonight,” I said to Leah. For our non-Jewish friends, this is the little ceremony that marks the end of Shabbos and the beginning of the normal week. We highlight the partition between the sacred and the profane, between that island of holiness in our daily lives that is Shabbos, and the mundane
I’m never impressed by outside experts, be they corporate, legal, etc. Our synagogue recently retained the services of two people: a rabbi who specializes in reinvigorating congregations, and an academic who studies our kind of congregation and I gather offers some sense of direction. It’s one of those things I think the current board thinks
I’m back in our legislative district state house race. And you know what? I really think highly of my opponent. He’s a genuinely nice guy who is well-liked by people that know him. Whatever policies I may or may not share with him, that’s the important thing. We’re presenting sometimes overlapping, sometimes competing visions for
Our rabbi mentioned briefly in his dvar this week “hitbodedut,” the form of private Jewish meditation, associated most with Rabbi Nachman of Breslov and the Breslover chassidim. Rabbi Nachman urged forests or fields for this. Can do! Says I. Muir said, “Into the woods I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” I find
Photo credit: Paul Cyr After a week-long vacation in Florida, we returned to Maine to find that our tomato plants had been raided and one of our newly planted fruit trees had been savaged. As my children played outside yesterday, as we had some time to recuperate, I thought about the prophet Elisha sending some bears
I wonder how many other Jewish kids in schools where there isn’t even a Jewish minority (Minority: Population One or Two) face Holocaust studies with trepidation. My wife grew up in a big Jewish community and counted Auschwitz survivors in the family. Me, I grew up aware of my Jewish background in a community with
“There is some factor in man, some form of special adaptation, which prompts a few individuals to exploits which, however purposeless they may seem, are of value to the survival of the race.” – J.L.R. Anderson, The Ulysses Factor
Writer, President of Bangor's Congregation Beth Israel, soldier, programmer, father, musician, Heeb, living in the woods of Maine with three ladies and a dog.
Director of Education for Congregation Beth Israel in Bangor, Maine, special educator and former school board member, mother to Amelia and Nezzie.
