Rabbi's Blog

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...

This last Shabbat about 30 guests from the Boulder Islamic Center joined our community for a Kiddush lunch.  It was truly inspiring to watch the interactions and conversations as we engaged in a loving, human endeavor of getting to know each other and learn from one another.  The fear and suspicion that pervades our culture and tries to make us enemies did not find its way into Bonai Shalom on Shabbat and I feel proud...Read more...

Thanksgiving in Jerusalem

This week it was Thanksgiving in America and I am in Jerusalem feeling full of thanks for so much here; the beauty and the passion; the courage and the hope of ordinary people wanting a different future; the incredible gift of reconnecting with wonderful friends; the opportunity to learn such deep Torah from the mouths and hearts of sages.

My week has been so full, it is hard to capture...Read more...

I am still haunted by the experience of walking into a large synagogue in Jerusalem for the first time one Friday night many years ago.  I had been invited to a Shabbat dinner in the neighborhood close to the President’s house in Talbia and was excited to get a taste of Kabbalat Shabbat in a new place.  Not one person greeted me, no one shook my hand or said Shabbat Shalom, nor even smiled at me.  The only...Read more...

“There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” Says the farmer, poet, environmentalist Wendell Berry.

Our world has seen so many sacred places desecrated; we have seen Black churches burning in the South; ancient religious sites destroyed by the brutal, insane violence of ISIS; the lifeless body of three year old Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach; and the hundreds of...Read more...

White House Honors Faith Leaders for Climate “Champions of Change” 

WASHINGTON, DC – On Monday, July 20th, the White House will recognize twelve people of faith as “Champions of Change” for their efforts in protecting our environment and communities from the effects of climate change. These Champions have demonstrated clear leadership across the United States and around the world through...Read more...