Ahz mah (So what)

Yom Kippur 2014 This has been a painful year. A sometimes frightening, sometimes overwhelming year. A difficult year to be a rational optimist, which is what I like to consider myself. This has been a year of enemies, some with names we have never heard of before, names like ISIS, Boko Haram, Khorasan. On the continuum of hope and despair, this has perhaps been a year with more despair than we have experienced in a long while. And not only for Jews. For people of color in the United States, for example, and for their allies who believe in the American vision of justice, it has been a year of outrage, fear, and at times despair. As I said on Rosh Hashanah: When it feels as if the Dark Side is rising around the world, when it feels as if hatred and violence and cruel injustices are oozing up through every crack of human nature…. The question arises: What can one person do? What can one person do? Today I would like to share with you a wisdom teaching from the early rabbinic master Hill...

Kol Nidrei 2014 About 23 years ago, Alan and I and our then toddler Jacob attended the 60th birthday party of a good friend. After a few hours, as people began saying their goodbyes and leaving the party, we overheard our friend say “Oh, people are leaving. I guess that’s what’s happening now.” Just like that. No judgment, no sadness, no wishing for it to be otherwise. Just “Oh, I guess that’s what’s happening now.” Ever since then, that expression has been a guiding spiritual principle in our family (as well as, on occasion, a source of humor). Our good friend is now in his 80s, and he too continues to try to live by that principle, day by day. Whatever is happening now, that’s what’s happening. Wishing it were otherwise only causes suffering. Of course, being human, we also experience the flip side of that guiding spiritual principle: Whatever is happening now… it could be better! In the Jewish tradition we have a name for these paradoxical impulses: netsach and hod. Click here ...

Rosh Hashanah 2014 Five years ago, at our first Rosh Hashanah as a newly-merged Temple Kol Tikvah, I shared my suggestions for three core values worth cultivating. They might have been entirely forgotten if Randy O’Brien had not thought to immortalize them as a beautiful challah cover: “Love more. Learn more. Fix what’s broken.” In honor of this being Kol Tikvah’s fifth year, I went back to take a look at that very first sermon. Not surprisingly, I have a different perspective than I did five years ago. (And I hope that I will have yet another perspective five years from now!) This year, I am drawn to focus on the “fix what’s broken,” and in a different way than I did five years ago. As many of you know, this past February I went on a 10-day tour of Rwanda to witness some of the peace-building efforts that have been evolving there since the Tutsi genocide 20 years ago. It was a mind-blowing journey. I shared some of my reflections on my blog, and also gave a presentation in May...

Erev Rosh Hashanah 2014 This summer, I added my maiden name to my Facebook name. I wanted to post something on a “chitchat” page for people from my home town in New Jersey, and I knew that no one would recognize me by the name Kafka. A week or so later, I received a Facebook message from a man living in New York State. He wrote: “Dear Randy, over these many years since high school, you have popped into my mind more than a few times... click here to read the complete sermon

Here is a list of what I imagine it might have been helpful for my 17-year-old self to be told when she was graduating from high school: 1.    That boy who dumped you, who you’re pining for? He isn’t really what you’re longing for. It’s the delicious feeling you once had in his presence that you are yearning to feel again. You will. 2.    That boy who’s an old friend, who you feel so natural and open with? That’s love. One day you’ll marry someone a lot like that boy. 3.    Those obsessive thoughts running through your mind are just what the mind does. They are not who you are. Learn to meditate. 4.    You are beautiful. Quirky, off-beat, skipping-across-the-street-barefoot beautiful. So is everyone else. 5.    Your parents are sometimes lost in their own dramas. Have mercy on them. 6.    Don’t feel guilty receiving love and  support from adults other than your parents. 7.    Y...

What would you say are the primary ingredients of a good life? Can you list four or five? Around the time my son Jacob graduated from college, I made up a list for him of what in my opinion were the five primary ingredients of a good life. I meant it to be a sort of checklist, to check for balance in his life, but now I realize it is a blessing: May you be blessed with a life that includes all five of these ingredients. Jacob and I reviewed the list recently, and it occurred to me that perhaps I should share it. So here are the Five Ingredients of a Good Life. Note that there are inevitable overlaps among the five ingredients. And also note that they are not listed in order of importance: The whole point of the list is that all five are valuable! Meaningful Work . Whether it is what you are getting paid to do or not, may you work on something which brings you deep satisfaction and is of service to the world. (If you also happen to get paid for doing it, that’s a bonus.) Close ...

My latest reflections on Rwanda, published by the Jewish Daily Forward online .

Imagine if most of the Jews who fled Germany – plus those who survived the Holocaust – returned to Germany after the war, created a new form of participatory government which outlawed discrimination, prosecuted almost a million genocide perpetrators through local community courts, encouraged the lower-level perpetrators to apologize and serve time building houses and roads, elevated the status of women to the point that over 50% of the members of parliament were women, and embarked upon an ambitious reconciliation and healing campaign at every level of German society. Can’t imagine it? Neither can I. But in Rwanda, the unimaginable is a reality. This February, on the eve of Rwanda’s commemoration of the 20 th anniversary of the Tutsi genocide, I joined a 10-day “witnessing” tour hosted by the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding , based in Amherst . Each day our small group of Americans met Rwandan people with powerful stories to tell. We met physicians and subsistence farmers...

 I am excited to share the news that " Bloom Where You Are Planted: A Spiritual Guide to Putting Down Roots " is now available for purchase online in a beautiful new edition! I wrote this little book back in 1996, and realized recently that its message is still relevant and useful. Through the marvels of on-demand publishing, I can now share the message with (hopefully) a wider audience. If you read it, and like it, I hope you will tell someone else about it. Or better yet, buy them a copy too! I believe that it would be a nice gift for a recent college graduate, or for someone who has recently moved. Or for anyone who wishes they had more of a sense of feeling at home where they live.