When an 18-year-old (may his name be blotted out) walked into a gun shop and bought a pair of assault rifles and enough ammunition to create a war zone at an elementary school, he violated no laws.
This Week In Wisdom
Surprising, But Not Strange, Bedfellows
I had the privilege of spending this past Tuesday in Washington, D.C., with Elan Babchuck at the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation’s national gathering, Dare to Overcome.
The Closeness of the Fallen
Monday morning, I sat in a Yom HaZikaron assembly at my daughter’s Jewish day school, tears on my cheeks as … Continue Reading
Do We Have Leaders Anymore?
We are living amid a time in which many are calling for increased power-sharing within and across organizations — with teams rather
Rabbi Hirschfield on Busted Halo and Inside Sources
Take a listen as Clal’s Rabbi Brad Hirschfield appears on not one but two podcasts this week! First, on the … Continue Reading
Three Thoughts after Totality
While words and photos will never be able to capture the experience of totality, a few thoughts came to me after driving fourteen hours over two days with my family for this scientific and awe-inspiring pilgrimage.
Predictability and the Unforeseen
The solar eclipse itself was completely predictable from an astronomical perspective – there was even an article from an Ohio newspaper from 1970 letting people know that “the next showing [would be] in 2024.” And if airlines and hotels actually did book travel twenty years in advance, you could know right now that you should travel to Tulsa, Tampa, or Orlando on August 12, 2045 to be in the path of totality.
The Eclipse Isn’t Just a Natural Process — It’s a Historical Event
Our family isn’t great about planning things in advance. There have been years when, say, Pesach would be coming in about a week, and we realized we hadn’t ordered all the food we’d need for the seders, leading to a few rather frantic trips to the kosher supermarket.
So while we had been hearing about the upcoming eclipse, we had sort of figured that a 90% partial eclipse (the path along which we live) would be a decent enough experience, and didn’t spend a whole lot of time mapping out a plan – we’d go outside, say, “Cool!” a few times like we did for the 2017 eclipse, and then go back inside.