Listening to the Siddur Project CD
Recently, my friend and fellow creator Julie Lavender released her music CD The Siddur Project. Julie hosts the syndicated Dreamfarm Café radio show, which features area musicians: an “experience of eclectic jazz,” says the show’s website, “an intimate window into the very heart of an artist’s creative process.” But Julie also writes and performs her […]
The Love of Money
Contentment makes poor men rich. Discontent makes rich men poor. Supposedly, Benjamin Franklin said that. I was unable, in my brief research, to confirm that these are actually the words of Benjamin Franklin. But it’s a good thought nonetheless. I’ve written about this idea before, from a slightly different perspective, that our happiness is not […]
The Bridge over the Chasm
The metaphors we use affects how we think of things. And how we think of things betrays the metaphors hidden in the reaches of our minds. Being part of a Messianic Jewish synagogue, I continually encounter the power of how we think, power to bring people together, or to push them apart. Because there is […]
May the Omnipresent One Comfort You from His Place
This coming Sabbath service at our synagogue, I’m doing one of the Torah readings, from the Gospels, the first part of John chapter 11. You may notice two funny things in that sentence. Firstly, as part of our Torah service, we don’t only read the standard parshah from the Torah (the first five books: Genesis, […]
A Good Friday
Around this time of year, I’m invariably reminded of the line Tony Campolo popularized: It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming. Because Good Friday is the day we remember the Crucifixion; and Easter Sunday, the Resurrection. But this year, it occurs to me that we’ve focused on only part of the story. Easter Sunday isn’t the end […]
When Do We Eat?
Tonight begins the first night of Passover. So I thought I might post some brief comments on some of my favorite lesser-known Jewish films. And since it’s Passover, let’s start with When Do We Eat? (subtitle: Sex, Drugs & Matzoh Ball Soup), the story of a really dysfunctional and hilarious Passover seder, starring Michael Lerner, […]
The Bat-Mitzvah Speech
I am truly humbled by the overwhelming response to my daughters’ bnot mitzvah. We had over 2 dozen family and friends who came out for the service. Firstly, a public apology for the length: 3 hours, a whole hour longer than a normal service— I knew it was going to go longer than our usual […]
Is It Ethical for Me to Use My First Name?
In preparation for my daughters’ bnot mitzvah, I’ve had to order several items from online Judaica stores. When placing the latest order, I realized—in one of those flashes of the obvious that I had previously been blocking from my cognizance… I realized that I had been using my first name, Jonathan, because it’s a good, […]
The Power of Forgiveness
Tomorrow is Yom Kippur. (Next week will start Sukkot, then Simchat Torah, and then the holidays will be done… Until Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, and so forth.) Yom Kippur is the Jewish Day of Atonement, “because on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the Lord, you will be clean […]