Melting pot or tossed salad? I grew up when American society seemed to shift from thinking about itself as a melting pot where immigrant identities blended together with American culture, adding some flavor by contributing to a relatively homogeneous fondue. The shift was toward what was then called multiculturalism in which racial and ethnic identities were seen as whole entities crucial to an intricate mosaic…
Have you ever hidden a part of yourself? Maybe for a job interview or a date, you dressed up or put on your best self. Maybe in this increasingly polarized world, you held your tongue and kept your peace. I know I have, sometimes to the point of feeling like a chameleon to fit in. Listening to Jewish student interview Dara Horn about her book…
One step forward, one step backward. Is that the beginning of a total of two steps back? Or is it the beginning of a cha-cha? Robert Brault calls someone who thinks the latter an optimist. In thinking about so much of our world at this moment, especially with regard to the pandemic, I confess that, despite my usual optimism, I am much more in the…
It’s been 11 years since Christmas last fell on a Saturday. It is the longest stretch in a cycle of Christmases on Saturday, falling every six years, then five years, then six years, then 11 years. It is little wonder then that this year is throwing me for a loop. Like many American Jews, I have inherited traditions to make the most of Christmas. My…
I have been seeking holiness of late. In the busyness of life and in the discordance of the airwaves, I have been seeking a rootedness, a stillness to make meaning of it all. Sometimes we just need to cease in order to be. This Veterans Day, the sound of silence meant so much to me. For one, I learned, for the first time, a passage…
How would Hollywood tell the story? In its season opener, Saturday Night Live had a skit poking fun at the billionaire “space flights” of this past July through the lens of Star Trek. As a fan of sci-fi, that got me thinking about imaginative leaps, barrier-breaking ideas, and social commentary. My favorite Bible story is an imaginative leap, not actually in the Bible, though it…
We don’t say “Happy New Year” on Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year. Well, some people do, but the traditional greetings translate to “Have a Good and Sweet Year,” “To a Good Year,” or “A Good Holiday.” Yes, many people understand “good” to mean “happy,” but even when we mean that our mindset is more about health and fulfillment than joy. The Jewish New Year…
“We are loved. We are loving. We are loved. We are loving.” Say it again with me, “We are loved. We are loving.” This mantra is at the heart of righting a major wrong. You might think that the Jews committed to God and goodness at Mt. Sinai, and the rest was history. The commitment was rash, it failed, and the trauma of the Golden…
I am that parent. When my children are at camp, especially sleepaway camp, I jump at the chance to see photos of them posted by the camp, clicking the refresh button on my browser to see what new files I might access. I analyze who they are with or not with; I make hay out poses and perceived popularity; and I also find those pictures…
Minutes before midnight Wednesday night, Israel marked a most mundane miracle. It was mundane for me because it was years in the making, because more has been happening on the ground than meets the usual eye, and because Israelis are good at holding multiple truths at the same time. The miracle was the formation of a coalition government made up of parties across the spectrum,…
“They made me do it.” Ah, the old refrain! Too often, we hear this phrase in the context of someone doing something wrong when they really did have a choice. To avoid accountability, we blame someone else; we claim coercion. What if, though, we claimed coercion in order to create future accountability? Before applying this idea to our contemporary lives, let me share a rather…