Scrolling bystanders, part 1
A blog series on lashon hara (“evil tongue / evil speech”), in multiple parts. One of my favorite stories to tell about my husband (even though it took place decades before I met him) is about when he...
View ArticleScrolling bystanders, part 2: Mandated mindfulness
This is part of a multi-part series on lashon hara (“evil speech”). Check out part 1 here. OK technically, the kickoff of this series is this “Introduction” post from 2017, which covers some of the...
View ArticleScrolling bystanders 3: Truth can’t set you free
This is part three of a multi-part series “Scrolling Bystanders,” covering lashon hara (“evil speech”) and other Jewish laws on speech. Previous installments: Introduction (2017), Part 1, Part 2. Next...
View ArticleScrolling bystanders, Part 4: Sinat Chinam
Today is Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the month of Av, known as the saddest day in the Jewish calendar and the day on which Jews mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples. It is a fitting...
View ArticleScrolling bystanders, part 5: The True Judge
This is installment #5 in the “scrolling bystander” series: Introduction (2017); Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 (2023). It’s easy enough to comprehend that negative speech is like a bag of feathers in...
View ArticleHumanity nourishes your Jewish soul
Last night I was honored to participate in the intown community vigil–organized by Ma’alot and other Jewish artists, rabbis, and community leaders. It lifted a weight, cleared the fog around my soul,...
View ArticleThe music of silence
The below is adapted from a kavanah I gave at an evening prayer service on Thursday, October 12, 2023 at Ahavath Achim synagogue. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, “in the end we will...
View ArticleUnity and Rebuke
A belated kavanah on last week’s portion, Ki Tissa. The quoted commentary is from Artscroll Interlinear Chumash. And a prefatory note: in this post I critique a letter signed onto by many admired (by...
View ArticleThe Torah’s Icarus Moment
The story of Nadab and Abihu reminds me of the Icarus myth in Greek mythology. From Wikipedia: “Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings for himself and his son, made of metal feather held to a leather...
View ArticleLast Bigots Standing
This morning as I was getting my eight year old son ready for school, I told him I needed to talk to him about something. “Remember that conversation we had before, about being careful how you talk...
View ArticleHa Ger
“Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Parshat Kedoshim packs a real punch, but this line is maybe the punchiest, and some phrasing of this concept appears in other places in...
View ArticleYour psalm: An Elul return
In recovering from COVID, I learned from a dear friend and mentor who asked for my Hebrew name and age: you have a psalm. Well, we all have a psalm, every year. When praying for someone to recover from...
View ArticleEverybody Wants This (except me)
OK I’m going to be the mitnagged who craps all over this romcom involving a young hot rabbi (Adam Brody) who dates a shiksa (Kristen Bell) that everyone is fawning over at the moment. It’s not that I...
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