I think in the last 12 years I’ve had about one summer ‘off’, which is to say, a summer where I wasn’t doing a Masters, PhD, HOS training, or HOS mentoring. When I had that summer break it was, despite my best efforts, not a great break, or as my wife likes to remind me,…
The Lowland – Jhump Lahiri
Even as I finished this book a few weeks ago, The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lahiri, continues to hold something over me, hovering in the back of my mind and heart. It left an unexpectedly strong emotional resonance that drew me in and left an impression. The title of the book reflects the neighborhood in Calcutta…
Being Together – The Netivot Shabbaton
I wanted to get some words down in the afterglow of the incredible Netivot Unity Shabbaton. It was even more wonderful than I could have imagined, entirely fulfilling the hope I had back in March when I raised the idea as a way to use the kedusha of Shabbat to bring our community back together. …
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! By Richard Feynman
I first heard about this book about 30 years ago when my uncle, who has a PhD in physics, told me that Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, a memoir by the Nobel-Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman, was his favourite book. At the time I had a lot of wonderful reading options in front of me,…
The Unique Wexner/Davidson Community – Dvar Torah
When I was accepted as a Wexner/Davidson Fellow as part of my doctoral work in 2009, a friend of mine, who had just finished her time in the Fellowship said to me, “The Wexner experience is going to change your life!”. The truth is that I didn’t believe her – but she turned out to…
Out of the Depths – Rabbi Israel Meir Lau
As this book came out some time ago, and was very widely read at the time, it may be that many of you have read Out of the Depths, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau’s biography. I finally picked it up over the summer when I saw it at a bookstore. I read the first third, about…
Amos Elon- The Israelis
The Israelis: Fathers and Sons, by Amos Elon, is one of those books that I felt I should have read, but never did. I recently came across the book on someone else’s bookshelf, and knew it was perfect for my summer reading. The Israelis, written in 1971, begins by describing the post 1967 sense of…
Does the World Need Another Blog?
No, probably not. And yet… I’ve started one. Why? When I was young, probably between the ages of 16 and 23 I used to write a lot of letters. This was especially true when I was in Israel and there were those aerograms that you could fold up and put in the mail. But then…