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✧✧✧ My buddy Marc meets me near my house at 3:30 on Saturday afternoon so we can bike to the small park named for Elizabeth

January 2026 — Portland, ORE Hiawatha Johnson, Jr., a mentor and friend died. Summer 1985 — Magic Camp Oakdale, Long Island I’m 15. He’s 30.

2026 issue #03 — The Delay I’m in my buddy David’s car. He’s driving me from my mom’s apartment in NYC to Newark, NJ, where

Lifeboats. Summer. Bridges. Helpers. The rapid succession of a toddler-drunk-on-power messes is overwhelming. I’m exhausted by the sheer number of (what seem to me) reprehensible

Religiously. Every Friday night, religiously, I do a particular tradition. I do the same ritual religiously every Friday night. I’m not misusing the word religiously

Thoughts on loving our enemies ✧✧✧ Three Saturday Services in a row the group and I interacted around the topic of loving our enemies. Here

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

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

An apple, a banana, and a baseball cap.🍎🍌🧢 ✧✧✧  I arrive at the wedding venue super early. My preference, always, is to arrive early, find

A few weeks ago, in writing to you about the High Holy Day services, I referenced stopping the telling the story of the fish-dwelling prophet,

Text Late May 2020, and I’m talking to Phil, my beloved father-in-law. I’ve returned home from yet another protest that “Black Lives Matter” — and

Ten minutes before I begin leading High Holy Days services, a large dog leaps up and takes a softball-sized bite from the bottom of the

✧✧✧ Vignette #1 “I’m afraid I won’t be able to get through them,” the future bride says laughing, bu tearfully. I’m crafting a bespoke marriage

  Note: Setting boundaries is like painting a room. Before you actually start painting—which is, relatively, the easy part—there is a lot of prep work. 

“I must be a bad person,” my friend J tells me. I called J just as I started my mid-day dog walk. He continues, “Maybe