There's More To You Than You Realize / 14 Nov 2019
With A Little Chutzpah You Can Change Your World
My chutzpah enabled me to forge a whole different life for myself.
Relationships & Family / 07 Nov 2019
Do’s And Don’ts For Divorced Parents
From Adults Who Grew Up in Divorced Families
Hold Dualities Together / 29 Oct 2019
What Tishrei Is Like In Squirrel Hill This Year
I am deriving joy from our Torah and tradition even when it is tinged with sadness.
Inspiring People / 25 Oct 2019
Representative Cummings: Lying in State, Dancing With The Angels
Remembering Representative Cummings
Hold Dualities Together / 24 Oct 2019
Is There Value In Distracted Praying? Are We Ever Not Distracted?
Should we even bother praying if we’re always distracted?
Daily Life, Wisdom Warehouse |
October 04, 2013
Respecting Opposing Views: How to Look at the Other Side
Seems like every morning we wake to the overwhelming headlines of fighting, anger and polarization – there aren’t many conversations today that aren’t anchored by disagreement.? From Congress, the media, cocktail parties and even our own dinner tables we’re seemingly unable to see that “the other side’s” opinion may be based in some truth. Instead opposing views should immediately be dissed or destroyed. Remember the Aesop fable, “The Fox and the Grapes”? where a fox sees some high-hanging luscious grapes and wishes to eat them. The fox jumps and jumps but fails......
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News & Politics, Videos, Wisdom Warehouse |
October 04, 2013
Video: Brad Hirschfield on Washington’s Bad Example
From Odyssey Network’s Faith on the Record series: “This week the political fight in Washington came to a crisis point over the Affordable Care Act and the debt ceiling, leading to a shutdown of the federal government.? There is a lot we can learn from the bad example being set in our nation’s capital, says Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, President of CLAL, the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.? “When doctrine and dogma get in the way of addressing the real pain that people are feeling, something is terribly wrong.”” Odyssey Networks......
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Sometimes we need to let the past be in the past. It’s not always easy – and it’s certainly not always appropriate choice. But sometimes it’s true that forgetting a part of your past is the best way to create a better future. Forgetting can be a remarkable gift – allowing ourselves to forget painful things we regret, resolving to forget the hurtful acts of others. Most of us have moments in our past that we wish were different, and many of us carry those hurts and resentments with us, each new......
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What would you do if forty days before your daughter’s wedding it gets called off?? In your disappointment, would you stew in sadness, would you cancel everything, try to get your money back? You don’t if you’re William and Carol Fowler. When their daughter Tamara’s wedding was canceled, the Fowlers called Hosea Feed the Hungry, a nonprofit organization that provides homeless individuals with services and resources, and invited 200 homeless people to what they called “The Fowler Celebration of Love.” William said he “prayed on it during the night and God had......
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This face could change our world and shape history.? Whether that happens or not, depends not only on him, but on you, and what you see when you see his face.? In part, what you see depends on whether or not you know to whom the face belongs, or if you simply see some religious guy – probably Muslim, or is that a Sikh turban?? But it’s actually bigger than that. What do any of us see when we see anyone or anything unfamiliar to us, “whatever religion ‘that guy’ follows”?? That’s......
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Relationships & Family, Wisdom Warehouse |
September 30, 2013
What the Looming Government Shutdown Can Teach Us About Relationships
The Federal government is poised to shut down in hours, but there is at least one bright side to this most recent round of ugly political theater:? it reminds us that playing the blame game is no way to sustain healthy relationships, or really succeed at getting anything of lasting significance accomplished. Elected officials are spending vastly more time and energy assigning blame for the impeding hardships which will result if the government shuts down, than they do trying to avoid the shutdown and avert the suffering.? Find that offensive?? Me too!......
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Spirituality & Faith, Videos, Wisdom Warehouse |
September 26, 2013
Video: Brad Hirschfield on Nairobi, Peshawar, and the Simchat Torah
From Odyssey Network’s Faith on the Record series: “This week saw two horrific acts of violence – a suicide bombing of a Christian church in Peshawar, Pakistan and the siege at an upscale mall Nairobi, Kenya – which left hundreds of people dead and injured.? Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, President of CLAL, the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, reflects on these events through the lens of Simchat Torah, the Jewish celebration of the end of the annual reading of the Torah and the beginning of a new cycle of reading the......
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Business & Education, Wisdom Warehouse |
September 26, 2013
3D Character Printing: Building Better People
Imagine a gathering of over ?”400 innovators, troublemakers, entrepreneurs inventors and transformation artists” where for a couple of days, thirty-two story-tellers from around the world from every field share their wisdom. ?Well this is BIF#9, the BIF Summit in Providence, Rhode Island – and I was as one of the storytellers. ?It was crazy, inspiring, creative, playful, purposeful and safe – a holy secular place at its best! Sitting there listening to amazing innovators (see this installment of Week in Wisdom) and engaging in conversations about identifying better ways to deliver value......
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News & Politics, Wisdom Warehouse |
September 25, 2013
Why Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Grandchildren Give Him Hope
On Monday night I had the honor of being at a dinner at the Plaza Hotel in NYC hosted by The S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace billed as a “conversation with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jewish American Leadership.”? About fifty people attended: Palestinian leadership, American political leadership including Martin Indyk, Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations, and former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, Jewish organizational leaders, and American Jewish notables including Professors Alan Dershowitz and Daniel Kahneman, Noble Prize recipient, and Abby Joseph Cohen of Goldman Sachs. The meeting......
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If you found yourself in a position to make the choice, what would you choose to have for your final meal?? It’s an interesting question for any number of reasons, not only because it gets you thinking about what foods you love most, but about how we think about food, and the deep connections between what’s on our plates and what’s in our hearts. Last Meals, a recent article in Lapham’s Quarterly, got me thinking – yet again – about this question, and pointed me toward an oddly fascinating blog called Dead......
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Watch: Barbara Johns, Teenage Revolutionary Against Racism
16-year-old Barbara Johns stood up against racial segregation and inequality in America's schools,
