Rabbi Jon 's Website and Blog

New web host, new look! Bear with me while I set things up and make sure the content and links I had before are updated in the coming weeks.

Leadership

March 12, 2025

Recommended Links of Mine for Purim This Year

Here in one place are links to the pieces I've done related to Purim and our contemporary world that I think are particularly worth a look or listen this year. For reading, listening, or watching. Introducing Adar Conversations: Esther-Informed Spiritual Therapy (read and video) Getting to Mi Yode'a ("Who Knows") — Moral Clarity in a Topsy-Turvy World… Continue reading

Antisemitism, Calendar, Current Affairs, Esther, Holidays, Inclusion, Israel, Jewish Education, Joy, Justice, Leadership, Middot, Midrash, Power, Purim, Shabbat Zachor, Simcha, Terrorism, Tikkun Olam, Tov! Podcast, Tzedakah, Tzedek, USA, Young Jewish Adult, Youth
March 12, 2025

Antisemitism, Our Security and Our Souls — Wisdom From the Book of Esther

This was Dvar Torah for Shabbat Zachor last weekend, March 8, 2025. Last year at this time, I coined a term for a brand-new approach to wellbeing. I called it EIST, for “Esther-Informed Spiritual Therapy.” The big idea is that the Purim story is the best mirror in entire Tanakh, the whole Bible, for Jews… Continue reading

Antisemitism, Community Relations, Current Affairs, Esther, Holidays, Jewish Education, Leadership, Parashat Hashavua, Patience, Power, Purim, Shabbat Zachor, USA, Young Jewish Adult, Youth
November 20, 2024

What I Wish President Biden Had Put More at the Center

I am pretty sure that from very soon after President Biden was inaugurated, I wrote and/or said that he had one essential mission, one which he was uniquely situated to do. To bring to bear his basic decency and his long experience with so many different types of people and groups in our society, and… Continue reading

Community Relations, Current Affairs, Election, Leadership, Peace, USA
November 4, 2024

Pre-Election Reflection for Before and After the Vote

Here's the note I sent to the congregation today. You can see the gatherings referenced in the letter at tbanashua.org Dear Friends: Tomorrow is of course Election Day. I imagine that almost all of you know who you will be voting for. Though if you are still deliberating about any of the choices and are looking… Continue reading

Current Affairs, Election, Freedom, Leadership, Peace, USA
October 9, 2024

A Year Later, Back to Moshe’s Final Words of Blessing — Rosh Hashanah 5785 (2024) Day 1

On Simchat Torah morning, after we parade with the Torah scrolls, we gather around to read the very last words of Moshe Rabbenu, Moses our teacher. The man who could hardly speak departs with an original song – his words, not God’s. And his last sentence in life begins: Ashreicha Yisrael, Mi Chamocha. Happy… Continue reading

Antisemitism, Calendar, Community Relations, Current Affairs, Gaza, High Holidays, Holidays, Hope, Interfaith Dialogue, Israel, Leadership, Moshe, Power, Rosh Hashanah, Terrorism, Torah, Yamim Noraim, Young Jewish Adult, Youth
May 3, 2024

Tentative Torah For the Week’s Parasha and Week of Protests

Some meandering and very rough notes about the opening of this week’s Torah reading, Leviticus 16. It stands on its own, though originally this all emerged from me during the spring 2024 events at Columbia University and other places. The chapter appears to be just the description by the Divine to Moshe and Aharon (Moses… Continue reading

Acharei Mot, Antisemitism, Calendar, Current Affairs, Foregiveness, Friendship, Gaza, Holidays, Interfaith Dialogue, Israel, Justice, Leadership, Middot, Midrash, Moshe, Parashat Hashavua, Patience, Ritual, Tzedek, USA, Yom Kippur, Young Jewish Adult
March 22, 2024

Being Jewish Is More Than Anti-Anti-Semitism

This was my D’var Torah for Shabbat morning, March 23, 2024. This is my closing address for our six-week conference of the Society for the Advancement of Esther-Informed Spiritual Therapy. Today is Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat that comes before Purim. Shabbat Zachor is the dark set-up for a zany festival. Zachor means “remember.” We are… Continue reading

Antisemitism, Calendar, Community Relations, Current Affairs, Esther, Ethics, Gaza, Holidays, Holocaust, Israel, Leadership, Middot, Purim, Torah, Young Jewish Adult, Youth
March 21, 2024

Purim: The Buddy Film

This was my D’var Torah for Shabbat morning, March 16, 2024, Parashat Pekudei. which fell this year about a week before Purim. It’s already after the Oscars, but I have a pitch for a new movie — it could even be a franchise! It’s about a pair of young friends who travel the world together.… Continue reading

Books, Calendar, Current Affairs, Esther, Film, Friendship, Harry Potter, Holidays, Immigration, Inclusion, Joy, Leadership, Midrash, Movies, Parashat Hashavua, Pekudei, Purim, Shabbat, Synagogue, Tikkun Olam, Torah, Young Jewish Adult, Youth
March 18, 2024

Adar Conversations Continued: Esther and Responding to Anti-Semitism After October 7

Rabbi Karen G. Reiss Medwed and I recorded this conversation last night, and you can watch it on YouTube or listen as a podcast. The Megillah (the biblical Book of Esther) is a story of anti-Semitism set in the Diaspora in a multiethnic empire where Jews were living in peace. How did the Jews of… Continue reading

Antisemitism, Calendar, Community Relations, Current Affairs, Education, Esther, Ethics, Gaza, Holidays, Holocaust, Israel, Joy, Leadership, Patience, Power, Simcha, Terrorism, Tikkun Olam, Torah, Tzedek, USA, Young Jewish Adult, Youth
December 15, 2023

D’var Torah: Dreaming Even In These Times

This is the D’var Torah I plan to share at Shabbat morning services on December 16, 2023 for Parashat Miketz. It’s related to this one I gave in late 2020, when we could begin to think about reality after Covid vaccines. I want to start by misquoting someone, specifically Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, on the subject of dreamers and cynics:… Continue reading

Chanuka, Chanukkah, Coronavirus, Current Affairs, Dreams/Dreaming, Holidays, Hope, Israel, Leadership, Miketz, Parashat Hashavua
December 7, 2023

Serious Chanukkah: Cultural Integration, Freedom, War and Power Then and Now

I love Purim and Chanukkah. It’s true that these are not the major Jewish chagim, and not in some sense as important as Passover/Pesach. But I have come to love them more and more because they are set in worlds I recognize as more contemporary than the major festivals. Their stories have more texture… Continue reading

Antisemitism, Calendar, Chanuka, Chanukkah, Community Relations, Current Affairs, Equality, Ethics, Freedom, Gaza, History, Holidays, Inclusion, Interfaith Dialogue, Israel, Jerusalem, Justice, Leadership, Power, Talmud, Young Jewish Adult, Youth
November 18, 2023

Reflections on Marching and Lobbying for Israel on Nov. 14

This is the note I sent out to the congregation and posted on Facebook. Dear Friends: This past Tuesday along with about a dozen people from our synagogue, I was in for the March for Israel at the National Mall in Washington. About 20 people from the Southern New Hampshire Jewish community were there in… Continue reading

Antisemitism, Community Relations, Current Affairs, Gaza, History, Israel, Justice, Leadership, Peace, Terrorism, Tzedek, USA, Young Jewish Adult, Youth