Breaking False Dichotomies, Compassion and Empathy, Longform, Mundane Into Sacred, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized |
March 10, 2022
Don’t Try To Be the Hero of Your Story
With two elementary-school-aged kids, we hear a fair amount of sibling fighting, with only some of it unprovoked. When one of them is getting a little too wild, and, say, someone’s limbs smack into someone else’s body, their first reaction is to say, “I didn’t mean to do it!” And while my wife and I do draw a distinction between purposeful versus accidental actions, we try to focus more on the consequences and how to make it right afterward. That’s what’s so striking about this week’s Torah portion, Vayikra. It outlines the......
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Another Way Of Looking At Things, Breaking False Dichotomies, Compassion and Empathy, Longform, Soul Writings, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized |
January 14, 2022
When Faith Preempts Facts
Our Torah is filled with stories of remarkable courage, leaps of faith, and ventures into the unknown. From Abraham leaving his homeland at God’s behest to his near-sacrifice of his son, we learn from our very first patriarch the ways that faith – often of the “blind” variety – is central to our collective story. But for all the dramatic leaps taken by our ancestors in scripture, one of them stands out among the rest. One of them, in fact, that isn’t even explicitly mentioned in Torah! After a treacherous race out......
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Breaking False Dichotomies, Compassion and Empathy, Hold Dualities Together, Longform, There's More To You Than You Realize, Uncategorized |
December 31, 2021
The Plague of Exhaustion
We have gone from horror and fear to resigned exhaustion....
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Breaking False Dichotomies, Compassion and Empathy, Grief & Coping, Longform, Longform, News & Politics, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized |
September 13, 2021
When Grief Turns to Rage – Shabbat Shuvah and 9/11
Leadership also involves compassion for others...
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Breaking False Dichotomies, Bring The Sacred Down To Earth, Compassion and Empathy, Hold Dualities Together, Longform, Longform, News & Politics, Spirituality & Faith, Uncategorized |
July 15, 2021
Bully Pulpits and Pulpit Bullies
When President Teddy Roosevelt coined the term “Bully Pulpit,” the term “bully” meant “outstanding” or “optimal,” not a pulpit from which one could use their office to bully their audience. New data from Pew Research indicates that a rather high percentage of American Christian religious leaders could take a lesson from the former president when it comes to how they use their own pulpits when addressing political issues. Pastors Often Discussed Election, Pandemic and Racism in Fall of 2020 The polling results, based on the content of sermons offered from the pulpits......
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Another Way Of Looking At Things, Breaking False Dichotomies, Bring The Sacred Down To Earth, Compassion and Empathy, Inspiring Story, Longform, Longform, Spirituality & Faith, Uncategorized |
July 09, 2021
Leadership Lessons and Serving the Servers in The Holy Land
Also by Rabbi Joshua Stanton You are standing in Bethlehem’s Manger Square, the Church of the Nativity looms before you, and you feel like the kid in the Disneyland commercial who says, “I’ve been waiting my whole life to see you.” You are a Christian leader standing in the Western Wall Plaza and discover that you now understand more fully how and why so many Jews attach so deeply to this one spot in particular and to Israel in general, even as you also discover that you, as a Christian, may still feel......
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Breaking False Dichotomies, Hold Dualities Together, Longform, Longform, This Week In Wisdom |
May 13, 2021
Once-in-a-Decade Revelations
Every year at Shavuot, Jewish communities all around the world celebrate the giving of Torah with raucous gatherings, enormous slabs of cheesecake, and Torah learning from dusk to dawn. Of the many fond memories I have of my time living in Jerusalem a decade ago, house-hopping throughout the night of Shavuot sits comfortably atop the list. I learned provocative, inspiring Torah from complete strangers, danced with folks from Haredi to Hiloni (strictly Orthodox to strictly secular), and emerged from my last learning session to feel the rising sun on my face while I prayed at the......
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Breaking False Dichotomies, Compassion and Empathy, Grief & Coping, Historic Profiles, Hold Dualities Together, Longform, Longform, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized, Wisdom Daily News |
January 22, 2021
Night Words, A Midrash For The Holocaust
The Meaning of this Day, January 27, 2021 In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly designated January 27–the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau–as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On this annual day of commemoration, the UN urges the world community to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism. The theme guiding Holocaust remembrance in 2021 is Facing the Aftermath: Recovery and Reconstitution After The Holocaust. The never-ending process of recovery and reconstitution of individuals, communities, and systems of justice includes: accurately recording the......
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Breaking False Dichotomies, Compassion and Empathy, Hold Dualities Together, Longform, Longform, Uncategorized |
January 14, 2021
Now What?
Donald Trump is mentally ill and needs a constitutional straitjacket. He is hungry for adulation to compensate for a mind-blowing inner lack of self-worth -that even those of us most horrified by his venality have to feel a smidgeon of compassion for. His most violent followers – a minority of the 70+ million people who voted for him – rendered needy, powerless, and stripped of their dignity by serious societal stress – have through their adulating Trump felt powerful. The violence of last Wednesday and the violence of Trump’s administration is a......
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Breaking False Dichotomies, Hold Dualities Together, Longform, News & Politics, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized, Wisdom Daily News |
January 13, 2021
Reckoning or Reconciliation? How About Both?
To impeach or not to impeach. That is the question. Or is it? Perhaps the more important question at this moment is not a question of what to do, but of why we do it. That has certainly been my approach, as I am asked if there are any spiritual or religious responses to the cresting chorus of those who are ready to explain the “right answer” to the question of impeachment — Focusing on the “why” more than the “what.” The question of whether or not the President should be impeached,......
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