Was Christopher Columbus Secretly Jewish?

On July 31^st 1492, under threat of death and forced conversion, the last Jews left Spain. Three days later Christopher Columbus set forth for America. Coincidence? Perhaps.

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Yet, some scholars suggest there is more to Christopher Columbus’s story than we have been led to believe. At least three arguments have been put forth suggesting he was not only a Jew, but that his faith motivated his voyage. Continue reading

It’s Time to Go All In

Near my home is a very intimate theater. My wife and I love attending plays there because you can almost reach out and touch the performers.

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We recently attended a play and had one of the seats closest to the performance area. During a particularly poignant part, my phone vibrated.  I did not commit the grievous sin of interrupting another person’s experience of the show because only I could hear the vibration.

Yet, for some inexplicable reason, I glanced at the screen to check the message. I pulled my attention away from the show and missed one of the most moving and critical scenes.  Continue reading

What Really Makes Us Happy?

If we took a big white board and made a black dot, what would we focus on? The dot. That’s what we would notice. But the board would still be 99.99 percent white. But the dot would draw our attention.

We often live our lives in a similar way. Things can be going well. We can have stable jobs, good food to eat, a nice house, yet something happens—maybe a stock goes down, or our child or grandchild does poorly on a test, and we get worked up. We focus on our energies on that.

It’s like when we get a report card from school, and it would have all A’s and then maybe a B, and your parents would focus on the B.

In fact, sometimes the better things are, the more we notice what may not be perfect. Have you ever stayed at a nice hotel, and then one little thing that you would normally tolerate somewhere else—say, the towels are not thick enough—and we get upset over that?

Okay, there are far worse problems in the world, but we have a tendency to focus on the negative in context. It seems sometimes we are wired for negativity. Or as Lily Tomlin once put it, “Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.”  Continue reading

An Uber Miracle

Much has been written about #uberfails. But how about an Uber miracle?

The New York Times recently featured a story about a young woman who called for an Uber to take her out to a cemetery. She was visiting the grave of her grandfather. He had been a devout Jew.

No one from her family had visited the grave since 1959. She happened to be visiting during the ten-day period between the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement—known as the ten Days of Awe.

This is a time when we visit the grave of loved ones. Something propelled this young woman to visit her grandfather.

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The Waiting is the Hardest Part

[callout]This is the sermon I delivered on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of the Atonement, Judaism’s holiest day of the year. [/callout]

My youngest child recently went through a Dr. Seuss phase. Perhaps some of your kids or grandkids did so at some point as well.

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One of the books she loved was that classic, often received as graduation gift—Oh, The Places You’ll Go. Her favorite two pages—I’m not kidding—were the following: “You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race/ down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace/ and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,/ headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place…for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come/ or a plane to go or the mail to come/ or the rain to go or the phone to ring/ or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No/ or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite/ or waiting around for Friday night/ or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil/ or a Better Break or a string of pearls,/or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.”  Continue reading

Do Jews Need a Pope?

According to an old joke, when two Jews argue you have at least three opinions. Former British Chief Rabbi recently echoed this joke when he pointed out that Jews have solved many world problems but still have not quite figured out “conflict management.”

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We are a people who argue. We are a people who debate. I cherish this part of our character. But I can’t help feeling a little envy for Catholics as the celebrated Pope Francis arrives in the United States.

Whether one agrees with him or not, one cannot deny that he has spurred a new energy and enthusiasm in the Church. He has gotten people excited and engaged, so much so that the entire city of Philadelphia has to cordon itself off for the few days he is in town.

Alas, neither history nor culture suggest we can expect a Jewish pope anytime soon. Here’s why:  Continue reading

Is There a Jewish Answer to Racism?

[callout]This is the sermon I delivered on Rosh Hashanah morning, the first day of the Jewish New Year. To hear the full audio of this sermon, click here[/callout]

The story we read this morning—the binding of Isaac—is about many things. It is about the meaning of faith. It is about blind obedience. It is about the replacement of child sacrifice with animal sacrifice.

It is also about the relationship between father and son. It is a difficult relationship. How could it not be, when Abraham was prepared to slaughter Isaac because God told him to do so?

Yet, it is also a loving one. Abraham and Isaac speak tenderly to one another as they climb the mountain. We hear repeatedly of Abraham’s deep love for Isaac. And Isaac does return to bury his father at his death.

Perhaps the most accurate adjective for their relationship is complicated. And it never is really resolved. The end of the story leaves us with more questions than answers.

Two Stories

I read two other stories this summer about fathers and children. Both were also complicated, difficult, tender, and challenging. Continue reading

Will American Jews Self-Combust?

[callout]What follows is the sermon delivered the first night of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. click here [/callout]

A couple of years ago I was asked to deliver a lecture over at Common Ground in Deerfield. It’s an interfaith learning center founded in the early 1970s. Some of it earliest supporters were members of our congregation. We set the date for the lecture. But as we approached, we did not have a title or a topic.

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The director, Jim Kenney, needed to get an email and poster created to advertise the talk. He asked me what I was prepared to talk about. I didn’t know—hadn’t really thought about it. But he needed a title right that minute. I said, no problem. I’ve got a title that always works: “Judaism: At the Crossroads.” 

[callout]I actually feel that when it comes to the Days of Awe, I could come up with a perpetually useful sermon title—Israel: At the Crossroads. Just about every year, a different crisis, challenge or dilemma faces us.[/callout]

Three years ago it was the Women of the Wall and the horrific violence shown to them by the Ultra-Orthodox. A year ago it was the War in Gaza. A few years before that, it was the Arab spring and accompanying convulsions in the Middle East. Sometimes I think a quip attributed to Milton Himmelfarb is extraordinarily true—“The entire population of the world’s Jews would be considered a small error in the Chinese census. Yet, great things constantly happen around us.”  Continue reading

How Heroes Think

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