Rabbi's Blog

Saturday Night in Krakow – November 10th, 2018

Here they have Cheder and Chevre and Hamsa; bars, cafes and restaurants; the locals pronounce that ch like cheese, cheddar, rather than Hebrew or Yiddish for a room, a gathering space, a school.

I wandered across the square for services in the ancient synagogue of the Rema (Remu here), as Shabbat was beginning.

Every restaurant is...Read more...

2018On a train. A Jew watching the Polish forests flying past the window

In silent knowing; as if their deep roots and dying leaves have never stopped

Holding memory and telling stories.

Hard to push away images of Jews in cattle cars seeing the same landscapes

On a forced journey to their deaths

Or the Poles watching indifferently perhaps, seeing through their tram windows

A people brutalized,...Read more...

It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood!

A beautiful day for a neighbor

Would you be mine?

Could you be mine?

It’s a neighborly day in this beauty wood

A neighborly day for a beauty

Would you be mine?

Could you be mine?

I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you

I’ve always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you

So, Let’s make the most of...Read more...

The story is told that the raven and the nightingale once had a competition to decide which of them had the sweetest voice.  All the animals gathered to listen and the pig was appointed judge. The nightingale sang so sweetly, the raven cried out hoarsely, and the pig, whose decision was final, ruled that the raven was the winner.  As agreed, the raven pecked out the nightingale’s eyes and flew away triumphant. A...Read more...

Doris Small – Devorah bat Moshe v’Hinde Miriam z”l
July 20th 1923 – September 3rd 2018

There has always been something about this time of year that I associate with Doris.  It seems that her falls, her time in hospital, rehab and nursing homes have so often been around Rosh HaShanah, and when I would visit and often blow the shofar for her, as I did on Sunday the day before she left...Read more...

I met my old friend Rebecca in the remarkable and exquisite setting of The American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem, a surprising haven of tranquility in a divided city.  After our meeting, I walked through the streets of this part of the city, so different and unknown to me compared to West Jerusalem, whose streets are as familiar to me as an old friend.  Not so many tourists here, just the Arab/Palestinian population living their...Read more...

What a world!  What a beautiful, broken, tragic, painful, confusing world. What are we doing here?  What words can I possibly offer to make sense of anything? I want to talk about all of it; hurricanes, floods, earth quakes, fires, our changing climate, 65 million refugees and displaced people around the world, anti-Semitism, Israel, racism, privilege, dreamers, the Rohingya in Myanmar, gun violence, North Korea and...Read more...

It is late at night on the eve of the first yahrzeit, death anniversary, of my dad, Alan Soloway, Aharon ben Avraham HaCohen u’Sarah, and I feel very reflective of the emotional and spiritual arc of this intense year. Tonight I was celebrating the joint Bat Mitzvah of Bella and Noa, twin daughters of very close friends in London at a very wonderful party, populated by well over 50 joyful teens and pre-teens and a lovely group of old...Read more...

I am enjoying sending out a weekly podcast, based around themes in the Torah and in conversation with others.

It is called A Dash of Drash – check it out here on itunes or here on Soundcloud. 

We also have them linked here on our website.

I hope you will listen in some time!

Often my Fridays include a visit with a wonderful woman in her nineties called Irene. Irene Rosenschein was raised in a shtetel in the Carpathian Mountains, then part of Hungary, now Ukraine. Most of her large family did not survive the brutality of the Holocaust, but she and three of her sisters all did and were all alive until just a few years ago.  Known as “die vier Shwester”, the four sisters, they were all in...Read more...

Friends,

On Monday I spent most of the day in Nablus, the Palestinian city also known as Shechem and a proposed sister city for Boulder. Having been involved in the opposition to this project, I wanted to see and experience for myself the culture of this place that is so close to the Israel that I know and love and yet an entirely different world in so many ways.  I was very warmly welcomed by everyone I met and...Read more...

Friends,

Yesterday, I wrote words of hope and reconciliation, appealing to the best of our humanity to uphold and work for the values that we most cherish, regardless of the outcome of this election.  Now, less than 24 hours later in the very early hours of the morning, I have to admit very honestly that I am in shock. Deep shock.  I have been so careful throughout this election campaign to respect the...Read more...

There once was a young man who went out into the world to seek justice. He heard the Torah declare tzedek, tzedek tirdof – justice, justice you shall pursue. Somewhere true justice must exist, he was sure, but he had never found it. So he set out on a quest that lasted for many years. He went from town to town and village to village, and everywhere he went, he searched for justice, but never did he find it. He went into...Read more...

Above my father’s hospital bed was a sign that said “name of patient, name you want to be known by, consultant, nurse” on the Read more...