A Pained Heart

Rabbi Brian talks candidly about how he often self-medicated with thought, hope, faith, and love to keep from feeling the pain in his heart.
A shout out this week to the 2 families, the couple, and the man who are all having a real hard time.

Loving Enemies

December 5, 2025

Thoughts on loving our enemies ✧✧✧ Three Saturday Services in a row the group and I interacted around the topic of loving our enemies. Here are some thoughts related to our discussion. ✧✧✧ The “Love your enemies” trope is famously attributed to Jesus — in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere. > Love your enemies, do good to those

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Oh, Honey.

November 27, 2025

Fall, 2025 I’m sitting in my favorite chair in the living room. The sky is getting darker. It’s almost dusk. I check the time: 4:40 p.m. The dark starts early these days. Especially in the Pacific Northwest. I make a mental note to take my vitamin D in the morning. ✧✧✧ Most weeks I get a bit panicked that I

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It’s o.k. to seek love.

November 6, 2025

Beloved reader, I am redoing the rotb.org website.  Again. Why am I redoing the website again? Because a website older than (blank) years is (blank minus one) years overdue for a facelift.  (The standard is three years for small sites and six years for large sites.)  ✧✧✧ While placing into the background a composite grid, 15 wide by five tall,

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