How Do You Jew
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Those Were The Days
My beautiful, talented daughter had some time to create original art on Sunday. While I was doing something (monumentally important, I’m sure) she brought me this picture of “Ima’s house when she was little.” Lovely, right? We’ve been to that neighborhood, and this ain’t a bad representation, actually, not that she was trying for realism.…
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The Sound of Silence
Can you imagine every radio station in the country going silent for 24 hours? It’s hard, huh? But that is exactly what’s going on in Israel right now, on Yom Kippur. Every frequency, every format, every transmitter – silent. I believe TV is off, too. Really lends itself to making it a meaningfully introspective day,…
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Remember the Sunday Brunch and Keep It Holy
In a wonderful confluence of happy coincidences, today I discovered that I was born in the Year of the Chopped Liver. What, you didn’t know there’s a Jewish Zodiac? Well, let me tell you: there is. And it’s awesome. Let’s set the Wayback Machine all the way back to this morning, when I glanced at…
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Looking forward, looking back
I delivered the d’var Torah this past Shabbat at Ohr Shalom. I had volunteered to do this months ago, but had completely forgotten about it, so when the rabbi emailed me on Thursday night to remind me, I emailed back with a “no problem” message that, thanks to the emotionless nature of the medium, completely…
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Pre-school profundity
I had a profound, important conversation with my three-and-a-half-year-old daughter Sunday evening. We were visiting the home of a congregant from our synagogue for shiva minyan, the service held in a house of mourning. The friend (T), himself well past middle age, had just lost his mother (she was in her 90s). Since we had…
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I love it when a plan comes together
I just successfully upgraded my WordPress installation, which powers this blog, to the latest version (3.0, called Thelonius – see the complete list of major WP releases, all named for jazz musicians). I did this with nary a bump, very few changes in settings, and everything seems to be right. My first activities with the…
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I did it!
OK, in the grand scheme of things, and even in my own life, this doesn’t count as a HUGE deal, but it was an amusing distraction for a couple of days that kept my mind off much less fun things for at least a few minutes: In the middle of last week, I brought up…
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Shabbat shalom x2
Starting off the weekend right with a couple of outstanding drashot from two of my favorite rabbis: First, again, is Rabbi David Wolpe from Sinai Temple in LA, whose weekly Off The Pulpit I’ve mentioned before – it’s consistently inspirational and thought-provoking (I’m including the sign-up information at he bottom so you can subscribe too):…
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We must be doing something right.
Earlier this evening, after a terrific day that started with our amazing music class with the fabulous Ms. Laura and continued with a fantastic get-together with our awesome chavurah (including you, Bernsteins! See you soon!) at Fanuel St. Park, my beautiful 3-year-old daughter, of her own volition, helped clear our dishwasher (she did about half…
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This evening.
Note: We are all fine. 1. If, while a passenger in a motor vehicle, you ever find yourself in a position to have a Dodge Ram 1500 pickup truck hop into your lap, say, “No, thank you!” 2. If you fail to follow the above advice, be prepared to become much better acquainted with your…
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