Dear Friends: My childhood Jewish religious education outside the home followed what I think was the conventional Conservative synagogue approach of the baby boom era.  We learned Bible stories and the aleph-bet, meeting a few hours every Sunday, from ages 5-9. …

Dear Friends:   Beverly and I continued our transition from New York to New Mexico this past quarter, swapping out New York-style pizza for green chile, as we embarked on the arduous task of unpacking hundreds of boxes, many of…

Dear Friends: I begin this bittersweet missive with a paraphrase of a passage from the first major Rabbinic text, the Mishnah, in which Rabbi Nechunya ben HaKanah composed a prayer (M. Ber. 4).  This prayer expresses my own experience with…

Dear Friends: The Talmud (BT Shab. 30a) says that “there is no marriage contract and wedding in which contentiousness does not arise,” but I find all weddings to be joyous affairs nonetheless. Beverly and I spent a week and a…

This past quarter has certainly seen Beverly and me venturing back out into the world more than any time in the previous year, driven in large part by our achieving fully vaccinated status.  (If you’re eligible for the vaccine but…

Dear friends: This “physicsrabbi” quarterly missive explores some positives that have emerged as a result of the ongoing pandemic.  In 2019, Beverly put many of our belongings into storage in Santa Fe and packed other items for shipment to New…

Dear Friends:This quarterly message to friends and family about my rabbinic exploits marks the fortieth such missive and ten years of electronic summaries. (As always, if you want to opt out of these messages, please just send me a note…

Dear Friends:I was never very skilled in languages and only learned as I prepared this message that “mignon” is the French word for “cute,” as in “filet mignon.” But what about the word “minyan?”  The Hebrew word “minyan” refers to…

Dear Friends:I am often struck by how meaningful, timely, and powerful our Jewish texts can be. Psalm 69:14 says, “May my prayer to You, G_d, come in a favorable time.”  The Talmud (B. Ber 7b-8a) asks what it means that…

Dear Friends: If ever there was a time to feel thankful for all of my many blessings, it is indeed now. Though we live on eastern Long Island and are immersed in a coronavirus hotspot, Beverly and I are healthy,…