Wisdom Works
02/23/2023 05:52:11 AM
To listen to this blog, click HERE.
About 15 or so years ago, I heard a most challenging question about Jewish ritual:
Rabbi Irwin Kula, President Emeritus of CLAL (The Center for Learning and Leadership) who was just here in Houston teaching at Yom Limmud, asked a group of us at Emanuel in Birmingham, AL, “Does it work?”
For example...
Does affixing a mezuzah to the...Read more...
I Told You So
02/16/2023 05:49:04 PM
Parashat Mishpatim, this week’s Torah portion, follows on the heels of last week’s revelation of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments provide us with a “Cliff’s Notes” answer to the ultimate question: What does God want from us? The Prophet Micah responded even more succinctly when he taught that what God wants is for human beings “to do justice, to have mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Standing...Read more...
Crisis in Israel
02/02/2023 12:53:23 PM
To listen to this blog, click here.
“The North American Jewish community has steadfastly come to the aid of Israel at moments of crisis. Israel belongs, first of all, to its citizens, and they have the final word. But Israel also matters to the entire Jewish people. When an Israeli government strays beyond what your commitments to liberal democracy can abide, you have both the right...Read more...
So Pharaoh's Standing at the Gates of Hell...
01/19/2023 09:16:14 AM
Whatever happened to Pharoah? Because the Torah doesn’t articulate that the Pharaoh of the Exodus story doesn’t die, the Rabbis teach that indeed he doesn’t. “Where is he, then?” they ask. “Standing at the gates of Hell, greeting the despots, and asking them, ‘Why didn’t you learn from what happened to me?’”
There are lots of bad people in the world, or at least people in...Read more...
This American Jewish Life
12/29/2022 08:48:27 AM
The theme of a recent episode of the podcast, This American Life, focused on “the ghost in the machine.” The idea being that in every technology, one can discern the imprint of the human being that was its creator. They open with some first radio recordings from RCA, they then move to a claustrophobic! daughter’s stories of her father who was the inventor of the MRI!, and then they move to a piece about a father...Read more...
End of Year Appeal
12/22/2022 09:15:47 AM
CSK is an idea that YOU bring to life. Because we don’t have a building, you are the infrastructure. YOU are the ones who carry the memories. YOU are our walls that hold us up, and against which we sometimes lean, and under which we find comfort, and within which we discover ourselves.
Some of you are “Regulars” – you give us life from day to day and week to week, you are supported...Read more...
We See You Sandy Hook
12/14/2022 06:32:58 PM
Yes, our Founding Fathers saw fit to formulate the Constitution with forthright freedoms about firearms;
And it is oh so inconvenient to try to interpret their words for our day, when some insist you can only look at them through theirs–Except when it is convenient for them to look at them through ours.
Look, I’m all for the Constitution, just so we’re all clear,
But I’m also a Jew.
Read more...
Otherwise, What's the Point?
12/08/2022 10:25:20 AM
I have always loved the story of the two painters who are hired by a king to then compete for the job of Chief Designer for a new castle. The King tells them both that they have to live in this one large ballroom for an entire year and that they will be provided all the materials that their hearts desire, in order to be able to complete a mural, one on one wall and one on the opposing wall, and at the end of the year, the King would...Read more...
As Broken as the Rest of Us
12/01/2022 09:38:07 AM
No matter the age, the gender, the relative “professional success/failure” ratio of the person I am counseling, one of the most common existential crises that arise is this notion of “imposter syndrome.” This is the feeling that we don’t deserve whatever job, recognition, or status we have achieved. Professional coach Jen Robinson writes,
“The common...Read more...
Reimagining
08/11/2022 10:04:22 AM
It’s probably unnecessary to once again recognize the uniqueness of this moment. But indeed it has been a very, very long time since Jews, Jewish families, and those who love them, as well as our neighbors, colleagues, and fellow strangers have found ourselves sheltering in our homes for fear of the outside. Some are terribly frightened of the risks to their health and those whom they love. Others are caught in...Read more...
Faith in Faith
07/28/2022 10:13:16 AM
For most liberal Jews in America at least, we do not experience today or the days surrounding it as different. Truth be told, for most Israeli Jews as well, the intermediate days between the 17th of Tammuz (the day of the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem in 70 CE) and the 9th of Av (the memorial of the subsequent destruction of the ancient Temple), are just Monday or Wednesday or… And I am not necessarily advocating for liberal...Read more...
Poisoned Wells
07/21/2022 09:28:46 AM
To listen to Rabbi Scott read his blog, click HERE.
About a month ago, three American Jewish families from a Conservative synagogue were celebrating their children’s B’nai Mitzvah in the Egalitarian section of the Western Wall when Haredi (Jewish fundamentalists) teenagers disrupted and defamed these families’ sacred moments. These families were holding their simchas (joyous events) NOT in the main part of the Western Wall...Read more...
Sinai and Philadelphia - do they still matter?
07/01/2022 07:27:08 AM
Then Amos replied to Amaziah, "I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet; for I am a herdsman and a grower of sycamore figs.” (Amos 7:14)
Well, I am not a legal scholar, nor am I the son of a legal scholar, but it appears that the left’s legal strategies have yielded a terrible harvest. I remember so very fondly the waning days of June, 2015 when I and a group of other Keshet volunteers were...Read more...
This is Why We Practice
06/24/2022 09:45:18 AM
Life is difficult and these days it seems only to be more so. My heart is broken by wanton violence. I can’t stop thinking about the children of Uvalde. Yes… Those who lost their lives, their futures, their hopes, and dreams… And also for the children who survived and will have to live with this permanent but invisible scar upon their hearts for the rest of their lives. I don’t demand that they live this way but it’s hard to...Read more...
The Rainbow and the Matrix
06/16/2022 07:14:13 PM
To listen to this blog, click HERE.
I’m not sure why the story of Noah’s Ark has more often been understood as a children’s tale. How many of us remember, “Rise and shine and give God your glory glory! There’s gonna be a floody, floody…so Noah built an arky, arky of hickory barky, barky…and then the animals got on by twosies, twosies…until everything was hunky dory.” This is a lovely and fun song,...Read more...
Thou Shalt Not Turn the Other Cheek
05/26/2022 09:43:30 AM
To Listen to this Blog article, click HERE.
The tired adage carted out far too often is “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” I don’t think either is true. Because what kills people are bullets. Yesterday’s gunman in Uvalde, Texas had just turned 18; within days, not only had he come to possess two long guns, but 375 bullets, all acquired in one purchase!
Read more...
To Israel with Love
05/18/2022 09:42:30 PM
I will never forget my first trip to Israel - December 1992. It started before I even arrived. It was midday in Israel, the sun was bright, shining against the water, no clouds, and the Mediterranean ran by my eyes like trees from a car window. The Tel Aviv shore drew closer each minute, and as I watched the shoreline disappear beneath the plane, a homecoming overwhelmed me. In that moment, I understood the words...Read more...
$614,250!
05/12/2022 07:00:20 AM
I am thrilled to announce a gift to CSK of $614,250! As you know, CSK normally does not offer public attributions in recognition of our supporters’ generosity. In this case, however, I hope you will agree that certain acts of generosity are just too significant to ignore. $614,250 is just about 150% of our annual budget! $614,250! Moreover, that isn’t even the top end of the yield of these donors’...Read more...
Do We Get It?
04/14/2022 10:10:51 AM
In 1776, the Revolutionary War happened and yet there is still far too much taxation without representation. And ironically, for that matter, far too much representation without taxation. The Civil Rights Act happened and yet for too long, too many have had to fight for the basic rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. WWII happened and the Holocaust happened and yet anti-Semitism, racism, and ethnic...Read more...
The Pharaohs and Hamans Keep Arising
04/07/2022 10:03:07 AM
On the Shabbat that precedes Purim each year, the maftir (the additional Torah reading) comes from verses in Deuteronomy which describe the attack on the Israelites by Amalek soon after the exodus from Egypt and sets in motion the “feedback loop” of Shabbat Zachor (the Shabbat of Remembrance): the Israelites escape from the brutality of Pharaoh, only to then face the murderous indignities of Amalek, whose namesake later figures...Read more...
