The world presents itself in two ways to me. The world as a thing I own, the world as a mystery I face. What I own is a trifle, what I face is sublime. I am careful not to waste what I own; I must learn not to miss what I face. Rabbi Abaraham Joshua
Pesachim 2a, right from the mishna says, “On the night of the 14th of Nissan, one searches for chametz by candlelight.” This is called bedikas chametz. The rabbis hotly debate the whys and whatfors (and accompanying minutia), but what it comes down to, for me, is a fun but weird way to get my children to
Perhaps one day I will write why I believe being a stepmother is hardest of all, but not today and not one week from today. Next week is not about me, it is all about my daughter: what she is losing and what she is gaining. What I hope she is gaining is comfort, security, peace and love.
My wife, Leah, and I are engaged in some classes for an endeavor of major consequence for our personal lives. It’s a cause we believe in, temporarily suspended when we came down with a case of the Nezzie over two years ago. The problem with these classes is that they are group classes, and they
Tablet’s Liel Leibovitz offers us a rehash of Ron Rosenbaum’s 2009 Slate Article, telling us that Billy Joel is basically a master of evil, the musical corollary to Donald Trump. Eat my ass, Leibovitz. I wasn’t jiving in junior high to Trump’s Art of the Deal. Our civics teacher latched on to “We Didn’t Start
Commiserating with Judith on adjacent ellipticals at the JCC (and posting it to Instagram) may feel like you’re fighting anti-Semitism, but seriously, no, it’s not.
.יַעֲלוּ הָרִים, יֵרְדוּ בְקָעוֹת–אֶל-מְקוֹם, זֶה יָסַדְתָּ לָהֶם The mountains rose, the valleys sank down–unto the place which Thou hadst founded for them from Rosh Chodesh Psalm 104 Psalm 104 is my favorite because it channels all the grandeur of nature and attributes it to G-d. And I found that on a hike on an unseasonably
John Chamberlin died at the age of 85 in April of 2001, and I have his computer. ✡ ✡ ✡ I frequently tell the story about my romance with KayPro CP/M machines. I learned Pascal and BDS C on the KayPro 2X my father gave me in the 1980s. I did my homework on that
The only thing that stank about this record dump of snow was the loss of our mailbox. Somewhere, in a drift on Baker Road, is the array of mailboxes belonging to our neighbor and us. My snowblower, which I affectionately refer to as “Black Betty,” easily conquered 32″+ drifts, once I realized the shear pins
A few weeks ago, I cut some recent deadfall on our property to start “seasoning it” in our woodpile. Last night, after Shabbos, I grabbed some wood from the wrong pile for our woodstove, and realized later that my fingers were sticky. I thought it was a cool corollary to Tu B’Shevat, where we know
Writer, President of Bangor's Congregation Beth Israel, retired soldier, programmer, father, musician, Heeb, living in the woods of Maine with three ladies and a dog. Brian is also a rabbinical student with the Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary.
Director of Education for Congregation Beth Israel in Bangor, Maine, runs joint religious school with our sister congregation, special educator and former school board member, mother to Avi and Nezzie.
