Parashat Emor, April 27, 2013           Last Wednesday, I represented local Jews at the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council’s gathering at Unity on the Plaza to say prayers of healing for those injured in the Boston Marathon bombings and aftermath.  The council’s convener offered introductory words, then representatives from several faith groups mounted the bimah [...]

February 23, 2013: Shabbat Zakhor           The mishnah states that a prayer leader who inserts reference to the mitzvah of sheluah ha’kan into the repetition of the amidah is to be silenced.   Sheluah ha’kan – the commandment to send away the mother bird before purveying her eggs for consumption – epitomizes the quality of God’s mercy. [...]

January 12, 2013: Parashat Bo           In case you haven’t heard, Israel had its own “storm of the century” this week.  It didn’t leave in its wake, thank God, a trail of devastation, a la Sandy.  But it did manage to shut down several of Israel’s main highways for a day or so, and incur [...]

January 5, 2013: Parashat Shemot           Yesterday morning, I woke up in my usual way, the radio next to my bed coming alive with the public news at 6.  Among the day’s early news was this, which version I borrow here from the NY Times reportage. *Switzerland’s oldest private bank on Thursday admitted to helping [...]

December 1, 2012: Parashat Vayish’lah Travel south on the ancient road of Derekh Beit Lehem from Jerusalem and you come upon a small building with a white domed roof.  Park your car and cross the street and pass through the gate in the wall.  Walk across the courtyard and enter the building.  Across the room you [...]

Yom Kippur Yizkor 5773 While Civia and I basked for two months in the glorious mountains of Colorado  this summer, Colorado was burning.  The tragedy of the forest fires peaked on June 26, when an entire subdivision of Colorado Springs went up in smoke.  Two people lost their lives, and dozens of families lost virtually [...]

Rosh Hashana 5773/2012 If I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all So sang the Albert King in his 1967 song, “Born Under a Bad Sign.” Those words came to mind this spring, as I stood in a special holding room at Ben Gurion Airport, along with 10 other not-so-fortunate travelers, who [...]

Rosh Hashana 5773/2012 Where in the world can a person find a wider variety of shuls than Jerusalem? When I lived there many years ago, I was a shul hopper.  On most Shabbat evenings I davenned at Yeshurun.  Shabbat mornings I was at the Italian shul.   And there was a little shul in the building [...]