Food

October 12, 2025

Why Our Jewish Community Should Be at the CROP Hunger Walk

If you’re in our area, I hope you will be part of next Sunday’s interfaith CROP Hunger Walk. Here is why I think that’s important always, and especially for all of us thinking about the place of Jews in America right now. Continue reading

Antisemitism, Calendar, Community Relations, Current Affairs, Equality, Ethics, Food, Gaza, Interfaith Dialogue, Israel, Jewish Education, Justice, Peace, Synagogue, Tikkun Olam, Tzedakah, Tzedek, USA, Young Jewish Adult, Youth
September 29, 2023

Affordable Housing: A Sukkot Reflection and Charge

This is my D'var Torah for the first day of Sukkot 5784 and Shabbat, September 30, 2023. Sukkot is actually the third part of the High Holy Days. It’s not just Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Sukkot is the zany but nuanced third festival of our kickoff month of Tishrei. And Sukkot is specifically… Continue reading

Calendar, Current Affairs, Election, Environment, Equality, Ethics, Exodus, Food, High Holidays, Holidays, Housing, Justice, Leadership, Shabbat, Sukkot, Tikkun Olam, Torah, Tzedek, USA, Yamim Noraim
April 8, 2022

Tov! Chapter 18 — Through An Existential Crisis

Listen and see show notes here!!! On “The Good Place” both Michael and Tahani experience their own crises — existential, midlife, and otherwise — and Eleanor and Jason help them through it. On the podcast, Julee Levine and I wonder which dimensions of such crises spur us forward, with some help from the biblical book… Continue reading

Ethics, Food, Kohelet, Tov! Podcast
March 26, 2021

Pesach Community Message 5781

This is the note I sent out to our congregation on Friday, March 26, 2021 as we get ready for Pesach to begin. Dear Friends: I have a short Pesach agenda to share with you below, but first: I realized a couple days ago how much I want Pesach this year to be like Chanukkah. There's no way, at… Continue reading

Calendar, Coronavirus, Current Affairs, Food, Freedom, History, Holidays, Jewish Education, Justice, Pesach, Ritual, Study
February 25, 2021

Purim Playlist!

I've had fun making these, and hopefully you'll enjoy learning a bit about Purim and the month of Adar, one short bit at a time. A couple more are coming in the next few days. "Hamentashen for thought"! You can click on the video and watch it here, expand it, or click on the three… Continue reading

Antisemitism, Calendar, Community Relations, Coronavirus, Current Affairs, Esther, Food, History, Holidays, Leadership, Middot, Pesach, Purim, Tikkun Olam, Tzedakah, Tzedek, USA
January 6, 2020

Daf Yomi Talmud Cycle Begins

(I actually wrote and FB-posted this yesterday.) Today is the start of a 7 1/2-year worldwide Jewish learning activity called "Daf Yomi" or the "Daily Page." In sync, Jews everywhere of all kinds of backgrounds read and think each weekday about the exact same page of the Babylonian Talmud — alone or in study groups… Continue reading

Bavli Berachot, Calendar, Daf Yomi, Food, Jewish Education, Prayer, Shabbat, Spirituality, Study, Talmud
April 22, 2019

Seders Are Done, But Passover Isn’t!

My column for the April 2019 bulletin for Temple Beth Abraham: One way to experience Pesach (Passover) is: Two nights of Seder, followed by a week of matzah. Two nights of a unique happening – around a table, with people very familiar and/or new to you, part recitation and part roleplaying, with symbolic foods and… Continue reading

Antisemitism, Books, Community Relations, Current Affairs, Ethics, Food, Freedom, Gossip, Holidays, Jewish Education, Justice, Lashon Hara, Sefirat Ha-omer, Soul, Spirituality, Study, Tikkun Olam, Tzedakah, Tzedek
March 28, 2018

Pesach and Who We Are

My Temple Beth Abraham bulletin column before Pesach in 2015, still spot on! Why do we care about what's in the past? Why do beginnings interests us, whether it's the origins of the universe or the first lines of a book?We look to the beginning to give us the essence of the whole. Origin stories… Continue reading

Food, Freedom, History, Holidays, Immigration, Inclusion, Justice, Kashrut, Pesach, Theology, Tzedek
May 9, 2014

E-Maggid: What Shall We Eat?

From the insights of the Netivot Shalom ("Paths of Peace") from Rav Shalom Noach Barzovsky, the Slonimer Rebbe: In this week's parasha, Behar, we learn the mitzvah of the Shabbaton – the sabbatical of the land. Every seventh year, the Land of Israel is to rest. People are to eat simply what grows naturally from the land in that year.… Continue reading

Behar, E-Maggid, Food, Parashat Hashavua, Spirituality
April 10, 2014

E-Maggid: Cleaning Out Chametz

Three takes on chametz as we clean and prepare our homes for Pesach: 1. Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad Chasidism, taught that chametz represents haughtiness. Yeast comes into the mixture of simple flour and water, and it starts eating. The byproducts are gases that become trapped in the dough and expand it. So… Continue reading

E-Maggid, Food, Hasidism, Holidays, Pesach, Soul, Spirituality
April 19, 2010

Food Links

What I mentioned in my Torah introduction a couple weeks ago: KOL Foods — Kosher, organic, pastured/grass-fed beef, lamb, and poultry available for shipping to New Hampshire and Massachusetts (among other places) LoKo — Local kosher, free-range chicken from a farm in Massachusetts — fresh, you put in some time on the farm (we've got… Continue reading

Ethics, Food, Justice, Kashrut, Tikkun Olam, Tzedek
April 9, 2010

Parashat Shmini: Liberated by Kashrut

The Sfat Emet has an interesting comment on the section of Parashat Shmini that enumerates which animals are fit to eat. He says: “By means of forbidden foods, freedom is taken away from the soul, and thus one who eats them denies the Exodus from Egypt.” One might think the opposite. The laws of kashrut… Continue reading

Food, Kashrut, Parashat Hashavua, Shmini