Dear Friends:  In the opening words of an oft-cited poem by Rabbi Alvin Fine, “Birth is a beginning, and death a destination, and life is a journey.” Using that image, I believe that Judaism can provide us with unique markers…

Dear Friends:Recently I have fallen into a modest exercise routine which involves racking up steps on my pedometer most mornings while listening to classical music; truth be told, as an avid indoorsman, I am usually marching around in my basement.…

Dear Friends:According to the book Hebrew Ethical Wills, selected and edited by Israel Abrahams, there is a beautiful custom dating back millennia for Jews to compose testamentary directions for the religious and secular guidance of their children.  In Abrahams’ anthology,…

Dear Friends: When I was a kid, I enjoyed watching cartoons. The sign off for Looney Tunes (That’s All, Folks) meant time to go back to something more productive than television, and I was never terribly happy about that. Endings…

Rabbi Jack with Lindsey and Zachary under the chuppah Dear Friends:This being another in a series of quarterly missives from a physics rabbi, I’d like to share with you a few thoughts about relationships, mostly from a Jewish perspective (don’t…

Dear Friends:“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the…

Dear Friends: I’m often intrigued by false cognates.  Hoodoos, also called tent rocks, are common geological features around Los Alamos, the result of erosion of soft rock underneath a harder rock.  This results in a tall, frequently tapered spire with…

Dear Friends: Our hybrid Friday evening service was interrupted recently in the middle of the silent, standing prayer, the Amidah, by a voice emanating from the computer speaker querying repeatedly, “Can anyone hear me?”  Although my solitude was momentarily broken,…

Dear Friends: Recently I scanned the headlines of the online news, and in my haste, I mistook what was written as bitcoin for the Hebrew word “bitachon,” Bitachon is generally translated as “trust.”  (Somehow, I think that putting one’s trust…

Dear Friends: The fall holidays provide us with an annual opportunity to take stock of where we’ve been and where we are heading.  A different cycle also came to a close for me with the completion of a study discipline…