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Perhaps it’s time to reimagine the King metaphor—much more like that of the Sabbath Queen—simple and clear. Golden. 

I am blessed to go to Camp JRF each week to facilitate a

As we enter the month of Av, which includes the holiday of Tisha b'Av, a day of mourning for communal tragedy, we are reminded of the power of ritual to sustain us during times of loss. However, for grieving families, the pain of loss can often make funeral planning challenging. In that spirit, we present an interview with Sharon Litvinsky and Jennifer Ross, founders of By Your Side, a funeral and memorial planning service in Princeton, NJ.

We're surrounded by the death of innocents. Orlando. Nice. Dallas. Tel Aviv. Innocents dead at the hand of terror. Innocents dead at the hand of gun violence. Innocents dead at the hand of complacency and silence. In Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, France, a priest was murdered in his church, a religious man doing holy work. Hostages were taken. His throat was slit. His name was Fr. Jacques Hamel. He was 84-years-old.

Every week seems to fly by faster than the one before it. As a result, it’s important to stop, slow down, and take time to reflect. Within the Jewish tradition this space to reflect is created on

When I made aliyah to

It could have been me. I could have retreated to the safe space of a gay bar or club in order to dance with a man, to hold his hand, to kiss him in safety. One of my safe havens, a safe space for LGBT people like me, has come under attack. My lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender brothers and sisters have been killed. And it could have been me. 

When my friends Ella and Natasha were getting married, I wanted to offer them music for their wedding based on traditional biblical text. The challenge was that there was, of course, no explicit biblical narrative of a same-sex marriage. 

You are standing on a star. The winds of creation blow through you. Of course, this is neither literally true nor scientifically accurate. Yet, these quirky statements are an invitation to living with radical amazement, a core teaching of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

For seven consecutive years I have created a painting based upon a practice known as “Counting the Omer.”