Last week, Israel's High Court of Justice ordered the Orthodox rabbinate of Israel to let women take rabbinic ordination examinations on the same terms as male applicants.For thousands of years, Jewish life has evolved.  Varying by issue and era, some evolutions have  been fast, some glacially slow, some halting and non-linear, some seemingly "two steps… Continue reading Spiritual Vision: Now, and Beyond Now (P. Matot-Masei)

Don Quixote comes to mind, though Cervantes meant his fictional character to be satire.Too many zealots, both historical and modern, are anything but fictions or mere satire.A zealot's charisma can captivate and intoxicate. A zealot's seeming commitment to principle can inspire – or blind.  Adulation can reinforce the zealot's sense of rightness.  Intoxicated by their own… Continue reading The Problem of Zealotry – Part 1 (P. Balak)

Last week we encountered the issue of zealotry – its captivating power, and its often very high cost to self and society.  We asked whether the nature of zealotry requires that we, in turn, must become zealots to confront zealotry's harms.Our world today demands our best answer. A photo from my personal Torah scroll, the 'vav'… Continue reading The Problem of Zealotry – Part 2 (P. Pinhas)

"...Hospitals usually aren't serene places.  From inbound ambulance to bedside telemetry, lights flash, sirens wail and monitors beep.  Late at night when I leave the hospital, the metronome of nighttime crickets evokes the beep beep beep of hospital time..."

The fourth book of Torah (Numbers) opens with our desert-wandering ancestors starting their 14th month walking free from Egypt.  They begin by taking a census of the Children of Israel, of each separate tribe, and of subsets of the Tribe of Levi dedicated to sacred service.  Thousands of years later, Auschwitz survivors bore numbered tattoos on… Continue reading Who Counts (P. Bamidbar)

Jewish life uses the word "holy" so often that the word can seem like punctuation – ubiquitous but peripheral, faded from view, nearly empty of the word's deep meaning.This week's Torah portion reminds us that "holy" is more than a word or even important.  "Holy" is the center, the whole point of the whole thing.Which… Continue reading Holy is as Holy Does (P. Aharei Mot-Kedoshim)

Open any Torah and you'll see in the first word of Leviticus a letter written in tiny superscript.  It teaches us about what healthy humility is really all about. By Rabbi David Evan MarkusVayikra 5785 (2025)​Open any Torah scroll to the first word of this week's Torah portion, Leviticus, which launches the third of the Five Books of… Continue reading A “Small” Teaching on Humility for the Chosen (P. Vayikra)

As we round the corner toward Passover, in Torah the Mishkan is finished and activated as Western life's first holy place crafted with human hands. What first made the Mishkan holy wasn't God. What first made the Mishkan holy was a human act.  Which begs the question about what "holy" is, and how we humans… Continue reading The Sense, and Senses, of Making Holy (P. Pekudei)

As our Northern Hemisphere enters the weeks of fastest increasing daylight and we accelerate into the oncoming spring (not a moment too soon!), this week's Torah portion opens with a command to make eternal light.The command aims at all of us, and the sudden absence of Moses underscores the message at this important moment. By Rabbi… Continue reading Lights On! (P. Tetzaveh)

Ten Commandments.  We've read them.  We've seen the art.  We've seen the movie.Jewish continuity, ethical purpose and spiritual becomingness all trace back to the pivotal sense-scrambling scene at Sinai.  It is said that each of us was there, the roots of our souls joined in the creation of our collective covenant.  On the Ten Commandments… Continue reading The Eleventh Commandment (P Yitro)

We all have emotional and psychological vested interests in seeming externally to be our best selves.  Most of us, we hope, respond to these impulses by actually trying to be our best selves in the world.  Our insides aspire to match our outsides.For others, the optics of manipulated perception are the primary reality or even… Continue reading Come to Narcissist – P. Bo

No liberation is easy.  Each begins with a promise that seems too good to be true.  Even a promise can seem fanciful during the squeeze of hurt or bondage – like a fantasy, or a delusion.  If there's a moral arc at all, at first it can seem out of reach. So it was for Dr. King.  So it was for Moses.  So it is for every liberation and transformation.

Who (or What) is God?  It's a question (perhaps the question) of the ages, and no blogpost can fully do it justice. ​Yet it is exactly the subject of Moses' first encounter with the One we call God: how should the Children of Israel name their liberator? And nothing has been the same ever since.

At some point (maybe many points), life teaches us that what we see depends on how we see.   So it is with our perspective on life itself.  Few of us go through life deeply inhabiting the ultimate truth of our own mortality.  But once we do, the very limits of our lives can help imbue them with greater richness and meaning. ​  If we let them.

t's not my fault.  Why should I take responsibility for any part of it?  We're all prone to say so. Yet our penchant to claim rightness has spiritual and practical limits.  Our acts and omissions ripple out far beyond their space and time, and Jewishly we claim collective responsibility for much seemingly beyond ourselves.​​Just ask the… Continue reading Showing Up, Taking Responsibility (P. Vayigash)