Family gatherings of all sorts. Kids on vacation. Slow time at work. Colleagues, friends, traveling. For some, this time of year is fraught with challenge.

On November 21, 2022, his 80th birthday, President Joe Biden pardoned two turkeys, Chocolate and Chip, otherwise destined for someone’s Thanksgiving table. Fox News posted that “the National Turkey Federation has donated turkeys to the president ahead of Thanksgiving since 1947 under President Harry Truman. President John F. Kennedy is believed to be the first president to spare the turkey, and President George H. W. Bush was the first to formalize the ‘pardon’ tradition.”

Veterans in times of conflict or in relative peacetime, whether in combat or in support — all of them deserve better. Veterans put their lives on hold and on the line to preserve what makes our country worth protecting.

In this week’s JTS Torah On Line, Grace Gleason, a Jewish Theological Seminary rabbinical student, writes that the fragility of the sukkah can teach us “to embrace impermanence. Our tradition tells us: there is no use in denial, and there is no use in comforting distraction.”

Along with telling us to dwell in a sukkah for a week, Torah instructs us to celebrate Sukkot by holding together the “fruit of a glorious tree,” a palm frond, a bough of a “leafy tree,” and willow twigs. As with the lack of detail about the sukkah, there is no mention of shaking, waving, parading — all things we do with those planty things.

My recent posts...Blessings, brachot. We have LOTS of blessings in our Jewish lives! There’s a bracha for nearly everything. ritual: leisheiv basukka, for sitting in the sukkah eating: shehakol nihye bidvaro, for foods that don’t fit the categories of vegetable, fruit,...

My recent posts...Jew by choice. Jew on purpose. Jew with purpose In America, writes Rabbi Lee Buckman, we are Jews by consent, not descent. We choose: No one forces us to be or remain a Jew. Buckman continues, The greatest challenge we face as Jews is to be tammim,...

My recent posts... Sell by. Best by. | Rosh Hashana 2 5783 | Rabbi Jonathan Kremer Since the summer of 2020, Ellie and I have been volunteering at the Community Food Bank in Egg Harbor Township. The pandemic made us consider those in need, and we felt the need to...

Last week, I found something new in an ancient psalm.

Ah, memories of summer camp! From being one of the youngest campers (my parents liked to travel unencumbered) to being a counselor for brash-mouthed nine-year-olds, I loved Camp Ram

My recent posts...Too Late So Early | 6 July 2022 a song of our times: Gets too late so damn early these days. We’re slogging through thick purple haze that obscures and confuses, everyone loses. Gets too late so damn early these days. Gets too late so damn early...

The episode of Bilaam and his talking donkey is considered one of the more humorous tales in Tanach, our Hebrew bible. (The scroll of Esther is also in the top ten.)