This past July I spent three days at a monastery in Big Sur, California, with Benedictine monks who live as hermits. It is a silent atmosphere, so I spent most of my day in an isolated trailer without phone, traffic, email or conversation. The first day I was there was one of the longest and …
Read More“I don’t understand why I keep making the same mistakes,” a patient of mine recently told me. He had called for a chaplain in the middle of the night because he felt overwhelmed by remorse. “I have been hospitalized five times now. I’ve lost my girlfriend, my friends, my law practice, all because of drinking… …
Read MoreClose your eyes for a moment and imagine the one place in the world where you have felt the safest and the most secure. For most of us this visualization brings up images of home—being nestled in bed in a childhood home, cooking dinner for loved ones in an adult home we created, standing still …
Read MoreSarah, a member of my congregation, once explained to me why she was proudly a “bad Jew.” She had hated her traditional religious upbringing. As soon as she left home she proudly embraced a fully secular lifestyle. Although she eventually found her way back to Judaism through belonging to a liberal synagogue, Sarah told me …
Read MoreWhen I was in rabbinical school, I officiated at a Bat Mitzvah for Beatrice, a young girl who was reading from this week’s parshah, Ki Tisa. As we studied the famous story of the golden calf, she asked me an excellent question: “What is wrong with idol worship, anyway?” After all, she pointed out, the …
Read MoreFor most of the past 3,000 years, civilization was shaped by smallpox. The disease decimated entire populations, destroyed cultures, swept across continents and altered the course of human history. Smallpox killed five reigning European monarchs in the 18th century alone. For people born in previous centuries, the disease was a fact of nature, a part …
Read MoreIn my work as a hospital chaplain, I am often privileged to accompany people in the last days of their lives or the lives of their loved ones. I recently spent a long night with Mark, a middle-aged man who had camped out in the waiting room outside his mother’s hospital room. The doctors had …
Read MoreJacob dreamed of a ladder filled with clambering angels. For 2,000 years, Jewish commentators have examined every detail of this dream and found within it a series of multi-faceted metaphors for the grand narrative of history.[1] But it is the moment when Jacob wakes to an ordinary day in a bleak desert that I find …
Read MoreWhen I was five years old, I developed a bad habit. My Jewish family was involved with a Tibetan Buddhist Temple, and while the adults were inside in silent meditation, I would occasionally sneak out to the lawn and ring the large ceremonial gong that was used to rouse the entire Temple into action. This …
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