Yesterday at Or Shalom Synagogue in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, we harvested horseradish from our synagogue garden. We are an…
Category: Animals
Return of the Eagle
News seems to be bad everywhere. Copenhagen, Egypt, France, the West Bank, North Carolina, even Canada. Each day, the voice…
Rolling My Vegetarian Eyes
Teenagers Sasha and Malia Obama couldn’t keep a straight face during the annual Turkey Pardon Ceremony. Thank God for their…
Re-discovering Cynicism
Help! I am trapped inside the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes, looking out onto the world. Vanity of vanities, says Kohelet, it’s all…
Dove Territory
Crows have colonized Vancouver. Superimposed on the human city is an entire crow city, divided into family territories. During the…
The Blind God
A night time dream, July 8, 2014: We arrive home from a trip. Our little cat Keely, a lively green-eyed…
Letting Go of Literalism
A Biblical story, from parshat hashavua: The king of Moab approaches the prophet Balaam, hoping to hire Balaam to curse the…
Magical Realism
It’s 1976. I wake up to find myself in my dorm room. The clock says it’s 11:20 am. I have…
A Dog at the Seder? Lessons from philosopher Emmanuel Levinas
As a child, the great Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas noticed that dogs appear in Torah at a crucial moment. On…