Ayin of Ma-du-ah
Last week we raised questions about the Hebrew words for “why?” — maduah ( Mem-Dalet-Vav-Ayin) and lamah (Lamed-Mem-Heh). We want to explore what these different ways of asking “why” mean and how the letter Ayin, the letter for the month of Tevet, might help us appreciate the word maduah. Rabbi Avraham Trugman responds to […]
Blind to Color
The mid-term elections this week expose “insufficient” language that serves to harm and divide our great country. It is not just the incessant language of rhetoric that divides liberal and conservative, democrat and republican—it is the insufficient language of color (some would call it race) that causes damage to the ideals of America. As […]
Start Spreading the News
When your campaign or video “goes viral,” as was the case with the (ice) bucket challenge, it is great news. The word virus, etymologically, comes from a meaning of the flow of poison. It has come to mean the spread of something (for example an infectious disease or idea) by the means of replication. Replication […]
Touched by a Torah
A few years back I received a call from then assistant Rabbi of Temple Sinai, Jay Tel-Rav, wondering if I could take a look at a manuscript. He was not sure what is was but he was definite: it was a Kabbalah text. I had a few moments between classes and he was but a […]
The Stopping Place
“There had to be a stopping place,” she said, “and this seemed to be the place for me to stop being pushed around. I had decided that I would have to know once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen, even in Montgomery, Alabama.” For Rosa Parks […]
Developing the Negative
There is an old and odd traditional prayer said at the beginning of the New Year—it is found in the Sephardic liturgy and it’s refrain is: “Let this year and its curses (come to an) end.” In the past we have heard of murders and rapes, we have listened to people’s accounts of atrocities and […]
Elephant in the Room
Rosh Hashanah is a time of reflection on beginnings, on the birth story of humanity and on our own births. I was born in the winter of 1958 in Atlantic City. My father had received his rabbinic ordination a year before and the small orthodox synagogue in this sleepy beach town offered him his first […]
Knowing Your Place
Jewish tradition enumerates a 48 fold path to the acquisition of knowledge, one of which is stated simply as “Knowing your place.” The Rabbis interpreted this quality to mean that every person has a unique contribution to make in this world. “The goal,” they say, “is to figure out where you fit into the grand […]
Leap Frog
Who has not heard this one: If you put a frog in boiling water it will jump out, but if you gradually increase the temperature of the water it will let itself be boiled. Happens to not be factual. Frogs indeed jump when the temperature of the water becomes too warm (well before it […]
Dear KE Community
Dear KE Community; Amidst all the challenging and tragic news it is easy to fall into despair about our human journey. We need to keep at the work we are engaged in—the more aware we are of the absolute necessity for us to evolve spiritually the more chance we have to survive. This is […]