I’m not the best faster, which means I’m usually not the best at Yom Kippur prayers. But I did notice two things this Yom Kippur, once while I was praying and the other time while I was not praying. In Avinu Malkeinu, the customary prayer we say over and over again during the High Holidays, […]

50 years ago, On October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated surprise attack against Israel on Yom Kippur, a.k.a the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.  In the Golan Heights, about 180 Israeli tanks went against 1,400 from Syria. Along the Suez Canal, fewer than 500 Israeli defenders with only three tanks were […]

Seinfeld has a joke that more people are afraid of public speaking than death. That means that more people would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. Not me. I was a natural born performer. Was it in my genes? Did my middle-child birth order push me to be louder in order to […]

“I grew up thinking that if you don’t do Rosh Hashana right, then terrible things are going to happen,” Jamie commented during a discussion of the High Holidays. By the nods around the room, it was clear that he wasn’t the only one who grew up with the Jewish guilt strong around this time of […]

I’m pretty sure that there’s a place in hell where the really bad people are trapped in a shoe store with hordes of short people who whine “Mommy” at them – forever.  There is a certain dread that fills my being at the end of every summer as we begin our back to school shopping. The […]