Last week my son got engaged. We are over-the-moon happy and can’t wait for this couple to start their lives together. As I was walking to shul on Shabbat and thinking about his life and the arcs it has taken, I was overcome by the movie of his life. It all felt like snapshots….and they’ve… Read More Snapshots
I kept a secret from my kids for 25 years. One that they only learned of a few weeks ago, when my oldest son got married. In 2001, a movie scene prompted me to start a journal for my 1-year-old. The idea was to write a letter to him once a year (or more often… Read More A 25 Year Secret
Last night, I went to a powerful shiur about the shofar. What, she asked, do you think about when the shofar blasts on Rosh Hashanah? Are you focused on your hopes and dreams for the year ahead? Do you hear it like a foreboding blast, representing Gd’s judgement of our behavior for the past year?… Read More A Song for the Year Ahead
Our friend, John Levin, passed away on Sunday after almost 2 decades dealing with early onset dementia. I was honored to say a few words about the John we were privileged to know before the disease took him away from all of us. These are my words from the funeral. John and Susan were our… Read More The John We Knew and Loved
What a strange beast time is. For the past two decades, September 1 has been the official demarcation of the end of summer and the beginning of the school year. Over 2.5 million children started school today in Israel, enabling parents to give a sigh of relief for the end of August, the end of… Read More Recalibrating the Headcount
When Josh and I were engaged, Josh met an artist at a Jewish art fair and came home raving about her beautiful work. After speaking with her, we decided to have her design a custom, one-of-a-kind chuppah for us. Thirty years later, the chuppah has traveled from various apartments in Potomac, Maryland, to our first… Read More The Fabric of our Lives
In 2002 while the intifada was raging, Josh felt the pull to come to Israel on a one-man mission. He spent time with a number of our friends, helped in his small way with the tourism economy, and showed people that he cared. He also attended the wedding of the brother of our close friend.… Read More The Simcha of a People
We’ve reached the half-year mark since the last time I wrote about my favorite books…so here we go. There are some unusual picks for me here and I hope you enjoy them. Let me know if you’ve read them already, if you read them now, or if you have other books to suggest to the… Read More My Mid-Year Must-Reads
For months, I’ve been thinking about writing a piece about the traditional blessing of gratitude that we say in Judaism after surviving a life-threatening situation. And then, during our daf yomi siyum recently, marking the completion of Masechet Menachot, someone spoke about her recent near-death experience and how they thanked Hashem afterwards for saving her… Read More Birkat HaGomel in Times of War
Last week, we went to Har Herzl, Israel’s national military cemetery, to pay our respect to those who have fallen so that we may live here. Each year, there is an official ceremony there on the morning of Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day), and the location is overrun with thousands upon thousands of people. We discovered… Read More Those Left Behind
