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Ya Gotta Believe — Something!
When it comes to religion, Jews have trouble believing things. The American population as a whole still widely believes in religious realities: 93% believe in God or a Higher Power; 86% believe in...
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Dreams and Visions
Hardly anyone reads the prophet Joel nowadays. In part, it is simply too painful. His opening vision of a plague is devastating. Then too, he reverses both Micah (4:3) and Isaiah (2:4) who promise a...
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One Hundred Great Jewish Books is now available.
One Hundred Great Jewish Books: Three Millennia of Jewish ConversationI’m happy to announce that my latest book, One Hundred Great Jewish Books, is now available. The full title, One Hundred Great...
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The Myth of Denominational Demise
The world is filled with certainties that aren’t – like the myth that religious denominations are dead. We will eventually have three inchoate pools of people, it is said: Orthodox, “Other,” and...
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Rule Makers or Rule Breakers? An Iron Cage of Our Own Making
After a hiatus of about four years, I’ve returned to my course on Ritual Studies. I love this course, which has grown to become a synoptic understanding of the major currents in western thought since...
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Why We Need Synagogues, or, What Synagogues Need to Be
The core problem with synagogues is that they have no raison d’etre, no obvious reason to continue. It is not that they do not work. Most of them work quite well – at what they do. It is just not clear...
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Why High Holiday Serivces Matter More Than You Might Think
“…Jews are baffled by [services] … Especially on the high holidays, they really don’t know what to make of this great big thick book that everyone is going through rather slowly, often for hours at a...
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Congregational Algebra
Are you interested in launching a thoughtful conversation on what your congregation should be doing better? Most people are. But they don’t know how to begin. If you open the conversation with, “How...
View ArticleParashat Sh’mini: The Holy Power of Hands
I have two tales about hands. The first concerns the hands of my college president. When we ordain our rabbis and cantors at the Hebrew Union College — an annual event, scheduled this year in just a...
View ArticleThe Genealogy of “More”
Genealogy is not just family history. It can also be as “a fictional narrative, an imagined developmental story, which helps to explain a concept or value or institution, by showing ways in which it...
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