Rabbi 360

Eight years ago I missed celebrating the turn of the new year at midnight. And not for the regular reason these days as I find myself at midlife not willing or able to stay up late as I had in the past, content to celebrate a “New York New Years” at 9:00 p.m. Pacific Time.…

I was honored this morning to deliver the invocation at the virtual swearing-in ceremony for Thurston County officals: In the first century, the Jewish Sage Rabbi Tarfon taught: “It is not your responsibility to finish the work [of perfecting the world], but you are not free to desist from it either” (2:16) That is, in…

This year I crafted eight reflections on the Hanukkah candles, one for each night. I put these up on my TikTok, and also shared to Facebook and Instagram. You can see them on TikTok without an account by clicking here. And here they are, all in one place: Night 1: What is the Miracle? Hi…

When we gather to begin the celebration of Hanukkah next Thursday night, we will perhaps retell the story of the “miracle” of Hanukkah–that a little amount of oil that was only supposed to burn for one day burned for eight. As the story goes, once the Maccabees defeated the Greeks for independence, the Jews found…

We have once again come to a time that we can add the appendage “like no other,” something we have been doing since March. After a Passover like no other, the High Holidays like no other, and a myriad of smaller, more personal milestones, we have arrived at a Thanksgiving like no other. As we…

As I write this, we still don’t have a clear resolution to the Presidential election. This was not unexpected, as we knew that with the increased amount of early and mail-in voting, it was going to take a while to tabulate the results. How long is unclear, and we must remember to have patience. Patience,…

Earlier this week my colleagues from the Washington Coalition of Rabbis and I penned a letter which was then published in the Forward. (I was proud to be lead author.) We used our experience as rabbis and WA State voters to provide some insight and guidance as to how to approach this election. The text…

As we have recently learned, the President contracted the coronavirus, requiring a stay at Walter Reed Medical Center. After he returned to the White House, he tweeted the following: It was a callous tweet, to say “Don’t be afraid of Covid.” It was insensitive to the 210,000 Americans who have already died from the coronavirus,…

Coming off the High Holidays, when we had to rethink how we did everything in order to keep people safe from the coronavirus, we move into Sukkot, and again need to think about how to observe this holiday and keep everyone safe. As we do each year, we build a sukkah at our synagogue, the…