I just spoke with my dad in western Massachusetts. He and my mom are praying that hurricane Sandy doesn't cause too much damage or take any lives. My dad isn't what I could call a religious man—I'm not sure he believes in the efficacy of prayer— but he is an observant Jew who attends morning minyan, so praying does comes naturally to him.
While less religious and observant than my parents, I add my prayers to theirs. And I add one more: that Sandy won't keep them and...
Sooraya Graham, a devout Muslim and an art student in British Columbia, took a photo of a woman draped in niqab and abaya (face veil and full-body covering), folding a bra while doing her laundry. Needless to say this photo sparked great controversy: a Muslim woman doing laundry? That must be an insult to Islam. Or maybe it was the bra. I don’t know.
Personally I don’t wear a bra, though there was a time many years ago when I could have used the extra support. Nor do I...
I just read that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) vowed today not to raise taxes on the rich even if President Obama wins in November. So why vote? If the system is rigged against the 99 percent; if the GOP is blatantly in the pocket of the mega–wealthy and devoted to their betterment and not the welfare of the country as a whole, why vote?
First, let me say that the United States is a plutonomy, a country of, by, and for the wealthy. It has been this way for decades,...
What is it with these Coptic Christians? Last week one them started a murderous global protest with his asinine and offensive “movie” about the Prophet Mohammad (PUH), and now Harvard Divinity School professor Karen L. King has translated a Coptic Christian text that has Jesus referring to his wife.
According to Dr. King, the text says, “Jesus said to them, ‘my wife.’” The text is in Coptic, a language I can’t read, but when I look at the Coptic text I think it says, “...
I received an interesting questionnaire while I was away in India. I’m sharing my responses with you here as an invitation for you to share your own with us as well. The questionnaire was meant for Jews, so adapt the as necessary.
What do you want your grandchildren to know about their being Jewish?
First, they should know they belong to a 4,000-year-old civilization that has shaped the Western world through such amazing people as Abraham, Moses, Isaiah,...
I'm in India as part of a Peace & Harmony conference in honor of the 150th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda's birth. His Holiness the Dalai Lama and I both spoke to the gathering of more than 1,500 (as well as dozens of others, but really, who can remember?). Being in India promoting peace to the already peaceful people assembled, I was out of touch with the news. Today I managed to get Internet access and learned of the killings of the Americans in Lybia, and the wicked anti-Muslim...
One of my dearest teachers died last Thursday. His name was Bonia Shur, and he was Director of Liturgical Arts at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). Bonia and Ellis Rivkin were my gurus during my five years of rabbinical school. I met both of them in Jerusalem in 1976 when I was in my first year, and studied with them every year until I graduated in 1981. Bonia was supposed to teach me Jewish music, and though I did sing in HUC’s Jerusalem choir, that never took....
As the election season rolls on I become more jaded. I am troubled most by the absence of truth in our politics. Facts don’t matter in America anymore. Truth doesn’t matter in America any more. Maybe it never did, but as Romney pollster Neil Newhouse putsit: “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” 'F' the truth. How did this happen to us? Let me suggest one explanation. In our quest to raise the self-esteem of our kids, we stopped challenging them to be accurate...
God always answers our prayers. Sometimes the answer is “no.” You’ve probably heard this said dozens if not hundreds of times. It’s God’s “Get Out of Jail Free” card. In other words, no matter what you get in response to what you pray for, you can say God answered your prayers, and your faith in God is maintained. In his new book The Ultimate Conversation, Charles Stanley writes that while God always answers our prayers God may not do so in the way we expect. Case in point Stanley says is...
Missourians vote tomorrow to save prayer in the public square. A proposed amendment to the state’s constitution would protect a person’s right to pray in public, and would allow students to opt out of any assignment or learning experience that violates their religious teachings. A recent poll suggests the amendment will pass by a huge margin, and I say more power to ‘em. It’s about time that Missouri’s 80% Christian majority stand up to the overwhelming 20% who have been forcing them into...
People attending the new Islamic Center of Murfreesboro will have to pass by thirteen crosses erected by the neighboring Grace Baptist Church. According to the local paper (Daily News Journal) three of the crosses, including the tallest one, stand for the Trinity, and the other ten represent the Great Commission given to the apostles by the resurrected Christ to evangelize the world (Matthew 28: 18-20). While there is no equivalent statement in Islam, there should be no doubt that Islam,...
Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy supports traditional Bible family values, and because he does many have condemned him and his company as being anti-homosexual and anti-marriage equality. And because many think this way Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has suggested that Chick-fil-A be banned in Boston. We have come a long way in America. I’m just not sure which way that is. Let me put my cards on the table: First, I’m a vegetarian, and while I suspect the lives of the chickens whose corpses end...
“In a place where there are no heroes—be a hero!” This two thousand year old challenge by Hillel the Elder, whom many consider to have been Jesus’ rabbi, is a staple of Jewish learning. But how does one do this? The recent horror at the Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, CO. called forth numerous heroes: individuals who put the safety of others above their own, sometimes at the cost of their own lives. Some of these heroes, like former sailor Jon Blunk and firefighter Jennifer Seeger, had...
[I can't remember who asked me to write this, or if it was ever published, but I wanted to get it out there. It is long, it is Jewish, and some of it might not make sense to those who aren't. But the general principles are universal. If you like it please share it.]
IntroductionWhen it comes to talking about being a rabbi I lack nuance, but nuance isn’t necessarily of value here. A carefully considered, middle of the road, on the one hand/on the other hand look at the...
Just how scared of Satan do you have to be to flee in the face of a non-Christian prayer?
This morning I hosted one of my bi-monthly lunches as Wisdom House at Scarritt-Bennett Center. Our theme was “transformation.” Nineteen people attended. We begin the lunch at 11:30 by asking someone to offer grace. This morning we had two women in attendance who were practitioners of Soka Gakkai Buddhism, and they offered to teach us the chant they use: nam-myhoho-renge-kyo (“I devote myself to...
I’m reading The Forward, a wonderful Jewish newspaper, and two articles catch my attention. The first wonders why young, secular, and liberal American Jews take so little interest in Israel. The second reports on ultra-Orthodox rabbis spreading an extremist Judaism throughout the ranks of the Israeli military instructing soldiers to “show no mercy,” to view civilians as “not innocent,” to “ignore any foreign doctrines [that] confuse the logical way of fighting the enemy” (doctrines such as...
I’m sitting at the counter in Noshville, Nashville’s New York-style Jewish deli, talking to a well-dressed fellow who tells me he’s a lawyer. Our conversation turns to the economy, and I thought I’d share his thoughts with you as best as I can recall them.
“Let’s face it: the United States is a plutocracy: a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. The only “people” that matter any more are corporations. You may think you’re voting for ideas or political...
In 1968 Mitt Romney allegedly led an alleged assault on an allegedly gay student at his private high school academy during which Mitt allegedly had his alleged friends pin down the allegedly gay student while Mitt allegedly cut off his hair with a pair of scissors. Is anyone surprised that the alleged lame stream liberal effete media would be on this story like glitter on Glee? Of course not. It fits right into their narrative of a heartless Mitt terrorizing homosexuals in his teens, dogs...
Damn, damn, damn. I don’t know about you but I was planning to enjoy my final months on earth as the Mayan calendar came to an end on December 21, 2012. I got a reverse mortgage on my house, sold the movie rights to all my books, took out massive cash advances on all my credit cards, and received large advances on books I have no intention of writing but whose due dates are December 22, 2012. I was certain that the Mayans were right and the world was coming to an end. I was planning to live...
I seem to have opened a can of worms, and I invite you worms to post your comments on the blog rather than emailing me directly. I can’t respond to each writer, and I have to move on to other matters, but I have been getting some email about my anti-religion attitude. But this is the last post for awhile. (If you're new to this blog, you can read up on the other posts, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.)
Simply put, a number of writers are saying that living in the South, especially in that...
