One year, my Yom Kippur sermon was on the theme of forgiveness. The next day, a woman came to see me, very upset about the sermon. She told me how, 10 years earlier, her husband had left her for a younger woman and she has had to raise two children by herself for the past […]

My son was nestled in my lap last night, slumbering at last, while I trolled the Internet for entertainment. Somewhere in a moment between status updates on Facebook and searching for shirts on oldnavy.com, I felt a gentle nudge on my arm. I looked down, and he was awake, his eyes as round and bright […]

Fifteen years ago I experienced a serious bout of depression that was devastating and painful. The mental anguish and the hopelessness that entered my world at the moment when I was at a wonderful place in my career were overwhelming. It was as William Styron has termed it, a period of “Darkness Visible” with a […]

Age has been on my mind all my life. When I was a kid I had a giant shock of black hair that was like a helmet because it was stiff with a product called ‘Slickum’. To comb it, I had to dip my head in the sink and wash my hair every day. That’s […]

It’s hard to believe that G-d hasn’t been watching out for me when I’ve had so many obstacles with drugs, rejection and people not believing in me. It’s been a long and continuous road. But it’s hard to just chalk it all up to myself. I have to believe there’s something greater than myself. Lady […]

I’ve learned the difference between being purposeful about an issue and being self-righteous about it. I have been self-righteous about too many things in my life. This did not sustain my involvement in the issue, nor did it lead to a solution. I wound up, to borrow from Rumi, shedding more heat than light on […]

In 1972, around the time I turned 16, we woke up one morning to an extra-large headline: “16 TERRORISTS DIE DURING FRUSTRATED ESCAPE FROM NAVY BASE IN TRELEW.” During the morning break at school, everyone was talking about it. Right before class, the teacher pulled me aside and said, “I overheard you and your classmates. […]

The world is a little too full of “can’t” — and there’s not enough “why not?” What’s more frustrating than to be told a problem isn’t solvable or a goal unattainable? My law school professors rewarded me for spotting issues and problems – but why not for coming up with solutions? A good friend of […]

I thought I had come of age several times over by the time I reached my 30s. After all, I had become a bat mitzvah, learning to read Torah and Haftorah and reciting prayers and speeches about my entry into adulthood as a Jew. I had gone through Confirmation at 16, taking part in a […]

A woman spoke with me after her double mastectomy. She couldn’t accept her body. We sought a new metaphor. Your chest is a sacred altar, and your breasts, the paschal lambs. “I look at myself now,” she later said, “and feel that I am sacred.” I believe to begin again one has to search for […]

I recently reflected on the fact that I had been happy for a sustained period of time. I don’t mean that sense of happiness attributed to Pollyanna – God knows my heart is breaking over the environment of violence and dehumanization in which we live. I realized the joy I was experiencing was actually feeding […]

The first Shabbat in Elul, two weeks after my father’s death, my family gathered around the Shabbat table. Everyone was home from summer camp and jobs, and for the first time in months, all the members of our immediate family filled their traditional seats. As we chanted Kiddush, I began to cry. The sweetness of […]

ELUL – the alliteration of this beautiful word evokes love. The word is composed of the first letters of the phrase from the biblical Song of Songs “ani l’dodi v’ani lo. I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” Love is Elul’s theme and is the force that lets us grow older with wisdom […]

Just as the courageous Zionists who established the State of Israel were energized by Theodore Herzl’s dictum, so do Americans draw inspiration from the notion that determination can turn our dreams into reality. As someone who grew up without a strong sense of roots, I have always been drawn to the belief – embedded in the […]

I have officiated at more than 500 funerals and held the hands of many loved ones as they slipped away. All of my spiritual training, however, did not prepare me for the excruciating experience of my father’s life ending in my arms after his battle with cancer. The death of a parent is commonplace – […]

Bill Gates said recently, “Humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity, reducing inequity is the highest human achievement“. We now live in a world of reality television, a world of accountability […]

Genuine compassion is irrespective of others’ attitudes toward you. But, so long as others are also just like myself, and want happiness, do not want suffering, and also have the right to overcome suffering, on that basis, you develop some kind of sense of concern. That is genuine compassion. Now unbiased, even toward your enemy; […]

What I have learned thus far is that we all can and must keep learning all the time. We learn from experience, we learn from others – often those whom we least imagine to be our teachers. We learn from whatever we can do to get outside ourselves – to spend time in a different […]

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said that we should live our lives as if painting a work of art. When I first read this as a new rabbinical school student, I felt troubled. Before beginning my studies, I had wrestled with thoughts of suicide. I was aware that my compulsive self-endangerment and lies had caused enormous pain […]

It’s when you’re all around a dinner table. / Sitting. / And talking and laughing. / When nobody has their phone on. / When dinner starts at 6:00 and continues until 2:00 because no one has anywhere else to be. / No bars to stop at or social appointments to fulfill. / When the entire […]

When I was in 8th grade, Mr. Ben Yudin, my comparative religion teacher extraordinaire, asked the class a question. “What are the four words you can say on any occasion?” The answer was, “This too shall pass.”I remember telling my father that night that I would never walk up to a bride and say, “Congratulations, […]

According to the Rosh Hashanah ritual of tashlich, we toss scraps of bread into a living body of water, symbolizing the casting away of transgressions for which we seek forgiveness. So every Elul, I find myself ankle deep in the Santa Monica Bay, heaving bread into waves where a few short weeks earlier I was […]

“Ready or not…here I come!” As the mother of three girls, this is a familiar refrain in my household. When we play, I think about my own childhood experiences…the anxiety of being the “hider,” the search beginning before I was “ready.” The chagim are coming, ready or not. Every year, I remember to get ready […]

“Clever” seems eager to begin at Homeboy Silkscreen and, at 22 years old, he has assured me he is ready to retire his jersey from the barrio. He moves with me easily through the factory, shaking hands with those printing shirts or catching them as they are spit through the conveyor-belt dryer. Until he turns […]

The instructor filled an empty jar with rocks. “Is it full?” Then he poured a pitcher of pebbles into the jar. “Full now?” Next he poured sand. “Full?” Finally, he poured water. “Now it’s full.” “What do you learn from this?” One student answered, “That no matter how busy you are, you can always fit […]

The month of Elul is a time for introspection, rebuke, and apologizing. Therefore it’s with a bit of embarrassment that I ask for your forgiveness. In our desire to get out this year’s collection of Jewels, it seems as if we jumped the gun and started the month of Elul one day early! In honor […]

Each year as Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur approach, we are reminded that sin creates distance. Distance creates factions. So we proclaim the unity of God, but the fractures in our community and in our own souls widen. Thus, teaches the Sefat Emeth, the first tablets were broken by sin, but on Yom Kippur Moses […]

“I wear prayers like shoes. Pull them on each morning to take me through uncertainty.” writes Ruth Forman, contemporary poet, in a work called I Wear Prayers Like Shoes. The poet goes on about the shoes: “They were mama’s gift to walk me through life. She wore strong ones.” Imagine if everyone in the world […]

I almost never dream. On that rare occasion when I do, it’s the typical dream that Freud would be proud of. I fly through the air. I can’t find the room in which an important test is being held. I’m driving too fast. I see almost no relationship between my dreams and my accomplishments. I […]

When is the right moment to sit and contemplate the difficult times we encounter? Why don’t I just get in touch with those things that are painful to think about, very real, hard to stay focused on?   How do I set aside time for inner reflection, slowing down enough to notice those thoughts and feelings […]

In the spring of 2005, Eva Robbins commissioned me to write a setting for Psalm 27. At the time, I had no idea why she chose this text nor where her ask might lead me. Eva explained that the text was recited each of the 29 days of Elul – to prepare for the high […]