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
One of the many reasons I love synagogue is because even in my 40s, congregants still call me “young man.” After my Army Physical Fitness Test last week, I don’t feel like a young man. In what is becoming increasingly common for me, I struggled with and actually failed the 2-mile run. I have good
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
I am, always have been, and likely always will be, a nerd. It’s not books, TV shows, or movies…don’t confuse geek chic with nerdliness. Everyone likes comic book movies at this point; it’s no longer the province of desperately annoying social outliers. No, I mean the kind of guy you don’t make eye contact with
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
For black soldiers, history itself has often ignored them. Memorial Day is a good time to think about their particular kind of sacrifice, when the way they had to serve was very much a reflection of American culture at the time.
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
I’m a cynic. I’m suspicious of people who eke out a living out of things like anti-racism. I feel strongly that in order to justify a paycheck, they have to overcomplicate the dynamics of racism, by misapplying academic theory to the mechanics of everyday living. Their greatest utility seems to lurk in identifying the insufficiency
“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.
