No Joy at Death

Like many of us, I’m sure, I’ve been thinking about the ritual of removing drops of wine from our glasses at the Passover seder. To me, it’s one of the most important, powerful, and poignant moments of the night. When we recall the plagues which God brought on Egypt, we dip our fingers in our

Tragedy and Evil

I’ve said this a few times, but I think it merits a separate post, and a bit of thought. One of the ongoing frustrations I have with how people talk about Israel, especially people who oppose Israel, is that there’s often a conflation of tragedy and evil. But, they aren’t the same thing, and it’s

Safety After the Flood

A quick word about the Noah story. Our ancestors believed that there was an ocean suspended above our heads. That’s clear from the Creation story — “God separated the upper waters from the lower waters (Gen 1:6).” It was just a giant vat of water up there*. That’s where rain comes from — the upper

Israel

Over the past few days, I’ve been trying to share my thoughts about the war in Gaza, and I’ve done so mostly on Facebook. Because not everyone is on Facebook, I wanted to put some of them here, too. No Justification (Oct 10) Let me be clear — I hope that, some day, there will