Rabbi's Blog

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...

Our hearts go out to the people of Nepal after this most devastating earthquake that has taken over 4,000 lives, with so many missing, injured, homeless and traumatized.  We feel far away and helpless and all we can do is open our hearts in prayer and compassion for the victims of this massive disaster.  We can and should also give money to the international relief efforts.  Some of us like to give at these times...Read more...

A teacher of mine recently told a diverse group of rabbis on retreat that “do you believe in God?” is a totally unJewish question.  In fact, Rabbi Sid Schwarz claimed that it is always the wrong question and not one we even have to answer.  Judaism can help us understand our own personal journeys of faith and struggle, our connections to each other and perhaps to something beyond ourselves, but it is not all about...Read more...

Not just one kid, but eight!  Beautiful, healthy baby goats all born in the week leading up to Pesach to Boulder’s Jewish Goat Co-op, also known as Beit Izim.  First there was Alfalfa who birthed triplets on Sunday with great help from Ru and Bob Wing and, miraculously, Bat Mitzvah student Becca Read more...

Farming and agriculture and connecting to nutritious, local food are central values for many of us in Boulder’s Jewish Community.  The JCC is planning to have an educational, 2 acre farm as an essential component of its new home across the...Read more...

Here we are on the brink of another Purim, the crazy Holiday of paradoxes where nothing appears to be what it really is and so much remains hidden.  The darkness and fear for the Jews of Shushan in the story told in Esther’s scroll is a mirror for our world, where macabre forces in the world, around us and within us are frightening and perplexing.  Some people find this Holiday so difficult to digest with its...Read more...

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“I can’t breathe.  I can’t breathe.  I can’t breathe.”  I hear Yaakov crying out these words as he wrestles all night long with an angel that may be his own conscience, suffocating him to examine his integrity and take responsibility, standing tall in his world with authenticity and pride.  A voice echoed in all of us as we struggle to make sense of a broken world and stand up to play our part in...Read more...

Friends,

We woke up this morning to such terrible news and I have been feeling sick in my heart all day.  The brutal and viscous terror attack on people finishing their morning prayers, many of them still in their tallit and tefillin, in a Synagogue in a religious neighborhood of Jerusalem, leaves us speechless and stunned.  It is a shocking tragedy and an act of meaningless violence from which nothing good...Read more...

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The tale is told of an old man who groaned from his heart. The doctors were sent for, and they advised him to drink goat’s milk. He went out and bought a she-goat and brought her into his home. Not many days passed before the goat disappeared. They went out to search for her but did not find her. She was not in the yard and not in the garden, not on the roof of the study-house and not by the spring, not in the hills and not in the fields....Read more...