Writings & Recordings

We don't struggle to pray because we don't know when to sit or stand, or don't know what page we are on, or can't pronounce Hebrew. This...

Judaism was never meant to be about Judaism. Judaism is a potent resource for expanding our own souls and possibly encountering the...

cross posted at The Wisdom Daily It was a Wednesday night, just a few days after the 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in...

A Journey of Recognition In my career, I have been fortunate to receive various honors and awards. One of the most meaningful...

The strength of our relationships is measured not by how much we love each other when things are easy, but by how we communicate when...

cross posted at ejewishphilanthropy.com When I was a kid, cold shame would flood my shoulders on the rare occasion that I entered my...

In Jewish thought, Thanksgiving isn't an annual tradition, but a practice we are invited to step into three times a day.  The Amidah is...

cross posted at The Wisdom Daily Obviously, dating sucks. In large part, that’s because we are quite explicitly being judged. From the...

All couples have differences.  Some couples have “formal” differences - perhaps you have a different religious or ethnic background than...

Around this time of year, we sometimes talk about forgiveness as if we could just cast off the things we regret, like some sort of...

Rabbi Brent Chaim Spodek and Ruth Messinger reprinted from Who by Fire, Who by Water , Lawrence Hoffman, editor For most American Jews,...

The public celebrations of Rosh Hashona and Yom Kippor are the culmination of work that we are called to do all during the Hebrew month...

cross posted from the Times of Israel I can’t remember the first time that I had a proper Shabbat dinner, the first time that I heard the...

In traditional Jewish thought, we are talkers before we are anything else. This sounds like a set-up for a dated ethnic joke, but in...

Invest 5% for ever after - whatever your budget for the one day wedding, be sure to invest at least 5% in the decades long marriage.

At the practical level, the hallmark of the holiday is the Seder, in which Jews discuss the liberation and its meaning for today....

What I lack in rock climbing skill, I make up for with rock climbing enthusiasm. I love the physical and mental challenge of finding my...

Few teachings in the Jewish tradition have shaped me as much as the words of Rebbe Nachman's Tefilah 11, in which he writes, "Holy One of...

Strong marriages aren’t frictionless; strong marriages have deliberate practices that allow for complicated, fallible people to be in...

cross posted to The Forward The Jewish community has been welcoming and celebrating converts to Judaism since at least the time of Ruth,...