Our experience of time is not linear.  Whatever a clock tells us, long stretches can pass in a blink while some moments seem to last forever.As we enter our annual calendar's peak autumn and the colder, darker months, perhaps we can open a window on how the Biblical Noah and his family felt aboard the… Continue reading Between Fleeting and Forever (P. Noach)

On this far end of Yom Kippur, we remember in our bones that all life goes the way of all life.  It is true that all life ultimately dies, and equally true that all that dies once lived.  We also know that in very real ways, all that died lives on in us, through us,… Continue reading For Whom We Stand (P. Ha’azinu)

Picture it: You're walking through a valley finally green after a lifetime of wandering the desert.  On each side is a mountain, and from each mountain a sound system fills the air with blessings and curses.  Waves of sound echo through the valley.  Your body physically vibrates with them.  Your mind and heart are clutched by them: a good life, or torment.

After community conflict, there are exactly two choices.  One option is to stew in it, holding onto the conflict's source or how people acted during the conflict.  The other option is to heal by building a worthy future together.Actually, when it comes to spiritual community, there is only one real choice. By Rabbi David Evan MarkusVayakhel 5785 (2025)… Continue reading After the Breaking, the Building (P. Vayakhel)

I rarely engage with artificial intelligence, but recently I asked ChatGPT to depict the "Golden Calf of modern society."   This image was ChatGPT's response.For Persia in the Purim story we commemorate this week, the Golden Calf was Haman, the xenophobic prime minister.  For our spiritual ancestors in Exodus days, it was literally a Golden Calf… Continue reading Unbend the Knee (P. Ki Tisa)

In liberal Jewish life, mitzvah often is translated as "good deed" and tzedakah as "charity."  To English speakers, both sound optional.In Jewish life, however, they're not optional.  They are mandatory and essential to Jewish continuity and resilience.  The whole point is to rise, and lift others as we do, and together raise up the holy. By… Continue reading Giving, Up (P. Terumah)

The Judaism of tradition is full of laws.  It's easy to get lost in the laws, miss their ultimate point and turn our backs.But societal moments that spotlight the rule of law often reveal grave risks when folks can accept or reject the role of law as they please.  The point of law is to… Continue reading Wise Restraints and Sapphire Skyways (P. Mishpatim)

​It was impossible.  The liberation from bondage – our birth through the Sea of Reeds that opened into a birth canal – it could not happen.Yet here we are, and we've been talking about it ever since.  The splitting Sea animates Jewish liturgy.  It drives Judaism's identity of ongoing human liberation from bondage, xenophobia and… Continue reading The Impossible Song of Our People (P. Beshallach)

Jewish life centers on love – not like, honor or respect, but love. Love is the core of our creed (V'ahavta), Torah's literal center ("Love your neighbor as yourself"), and the most repeated admonition in sacred Jewish text ("love the stranger, for you were a stranger"). But how can love be commanded? How can any true love be required, especially if the world feels unlovely to us? What kind of love is that? Turns out, this kind of love is most important of all.

Fear doesn't seem like an emotion we choose. Whether we experience fear as an overpowering wave, a dull ache in the gut or something else, we rarely go looking for fear. Even so, especially so, our existential choice in this season, especially this year, is whether we will choose to allow fear to inhibit us. Our answer matters utterly now.

We yearn for "yes" – a benevolent Power that answers prayers, cures the ill, heals the world and satisfies wants. Countless many have lost faith (and sometimes found it again) after encountering a spiritual "no" when they yearned for "yes." It takes courage, maturity and wisdom to be in relationship with a "God of no" – which, it turns out, flips a key Western belief image on its head.

midst spirituality's search for certainty, we can come to believe that some truths, perspectives, practices, methods and systems can't be questioned and can't be changed. In a sense, we turn them into sacred cows. But Torah teaches that there are no sacred cows. And in Torah's "Jedi"-like way, she does so using... a sacred cow.

How people navigate dispute often says more about them than whatever the dispute might be. The stakes, the context and especially one's own perceived rightness can cause good people to forget the better angels of their nature.

In the way that most people imagine our spiritual ancestors making their way across the desert to the Land of Promise, Moses followed God... the tribal chiefs followed Moses... and the rest followed the person in front of them.  They were like obedient kindergarteners in a school hallway.But as this week's Torah portion relates, everyone… Continue reading For All to See – Not Just the Professional Jew (Pekudei)

Happy 2024!  I hope this secular year dawns bright and hopeful for you and your loved ones.And, Jewishly speaking, happy spring!  It's weird but true: we're on the runway for spring already.The Jewish calendar has two over-arching time motives.  One is the summer-autumn move of seven weeks leading to Rosh Hashanah, then through Yom Kippur… Continue reading Spring is Coming!

We live our lives as if we are immortal.  We imagine death to be such a downer – so depressive, so scary – that we spend our lives trying to outrun it, or pretending it away.  Or in death's shadow we become fatalistic, disconnected.  Yet our awareness that all earthly life must die is an… Continue reading Like You’re Dying (Vayehi)

My namesake, David of Jerusalem, was said to write these words of Psalm 147: Healer of the broken hearted – הרופא לשבורי לבBinder of their wounds – ומחבש לעצבותםCounter of the stars' number – מונה מספר לכוכביםCalling them each by name – לכולם שמות יקרא On this longest night, the blessing we most need is… Continue reading Rabbi David’s Blessing at the Interfaith Council’s “Longest Night”